


A Fool's Graveyard

by EtincelleDOR



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, F/M, Lotura - Freeform, NSFW, Suicide Attempt, Trapped in the Rift, but also fluff, hapless drinking, hurting before healing, mature themes, suppose I'll have to tag this as Klance now
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-01-25 01:53:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 28
Words: 109,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21348313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EtincelleDOR/pseuds/EtincelleDOR
Summary: Allura makes one last-ditch attempt to save Lotor from the Rift, but does not count on being stuck there, with a damaged ship, an angry prince, and all the time in the world.
Relationships: Allura/Lotor (Voltron)
Comments: 102
Kudos: 278





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I must have started writing this in February, and never thought I'd publish it. I have no idea where it's going, or if I'll ever finish it. I am not a writer, professionally I am as far from a creative writer as it's possible to get. I write fluffy, nonsensical drivel for my own entertainment, but hopefully there'll be a few people out there who can enjoy this with me too :)

_Lotor takes a deep breath, and inhales the sweet scent of the air around him._

_Gone are Sincline’s deafening overload alarms, and the electric sparks from its overheating control panel. Gone is the blind panic, something that he so rarely felt it was somehow cathartic that he still could._

_It’s warm, almost uncomfortably warm, and his head is pounding something evil. His rigid fingers twitch against what should be metal, and a confused growl rumbles from his dry throat as they clasp around something soft instead. He is sure his body must ache from some pain or another, but there is no pain anymore. There is no, nothing. It is hardly a pleasant surprise. Lotor knows by now that any sense of comfort is usually just the calm before the storm._

_His body is flat out, collapsed on the ground, crushing what seemed to be fresh plant matter beneath it. “_What the quiznak_…?” he mutters, scrunching his eyelids together in a feeble attempt to will the fatigue away. That scent…_

_Juniberries. He smells juniberries._

_There was no possible way he could have known they were juniberries from their scent alone. That was long lost to history, along with the vast plains of Altea, and the other half of his damned soul. Yet as he lay there embraced by their delicate stems and fragile petals, he was as sure they were juniberries as he was sure the sky was blue._

_Lotor’s mind concludes that something massive must have struck him in the head._

_Sunlight streams through his eyes, bright blue sky with white fluffy clouds fills his vision. A single pinnate leaf prickles at his cheek, and the jolt to his nervous system is enough to force him onto his elbows._

_He gasps in wonder as he realises he is surrounded by a sea of juniberries, on a high cliff, looking out over a deep blue ocean. The breeze is light and gentle, sweet with pollen and somehow strong enough to sweep his soul away if it wanted to. Its beauty was breath-taking, like nothing he had ever seen in his ten thousand years of life…_

_This place is always what he imagined Altea to be._

_His mind was hazy, his heart ached, intoxicated by his own desperation for this all to be real. Yearning simmers away in his stomach as he lies there for a while, unmoving, inhaling the fresh sea air into his lungs, sure that if he can steal himself for a few moments more, he could pretend for a little while longer this was the Altea he longed for._

_“This can’t be real…” he utters to himself as his eyes gaze far into the horizon, “It can’t…”_

_“Lotor!”_

_A happy voice fills his ears, knocking him from his trance. Allura is wearing her periwinkle blue gown, and the most beautiful smile on her face as she waves to him from across the field. His heart twists itself in longing. He wants to run to her, but finds himself entirely unable to move his limbs, a deep nausea settling in his stomach._

_There were a million things he could have said to her. His fingers could have curled around her neck in hatred for the way she had judged him. Equally he could have dropped to his knees before her and begged her to forgive him for using her as pawn in his game. _

_If he had killed her in the Rift like he had always intended to, none of this would have happened._

_Lotor hangs his head in his hands in despair – he had planned to kill her more than once. To watch the life drain from her eyes, like he had so many others. Until this incredible woman gave him hope for a better universe, reminded him why he started this in the first place, stole his heart and refused to give it back. _

_He rolls his eyes at the thought. It was only poetic, he supposed, to have killed so many Alteans, the people he swore he would protect, to be such a blight upon their very existence – a Galra hybrid, no less – a monstrosity, to have his life ended by the hand of their rightful Queen._

_He mentally prepares himself for her throw him off the cliff and onto the jagged rocks below for the atrocities he had committed, but she seemed so pleased to see him, elated even, it was such a gut-wrenching contrast to how things should be. She clutches at her skirts, trying to avoid treading on the densest patches of juniberries as she makes her way over to him, juniberry juice beginning to seep red into the soles of her shoes._

_“I thought I’d find you here.” She says as she settles herself beside him, her eyes shining with a sheer delight, one he never thought he’d be lucky enough to see again._

_His hand reaches out to her automatically, and suddenly panic sets in. What must it mean if she is here with him?_

_“Allura…” he says, looking around frantically for any sign of Voltron or the other paladins. Finding no one in sight but them, he lets the first words he can think of fall out of his mouth, “Are you alright?”_

_She gives him a look that seemed to question his very sanity. “Yes.” She smiles, “I could ask you the same thing?”_

_“Where are we?” he asks, his tone becoming more demanding as she smooths her skirts in her lap._

_“We’re home.”_

_He blinks. “Home?”_

_She nods gently. “Of course.” She chuckles, brushing a strand of wispy silver hair behind her ear in the warm breeze. “Where else would we be?”_

_Her attention is diverted by the state of his gloves – tattered, singed, burned. He hadn’t noticed the pain in his raw skin until she took his hand in hers to inspect it better._

_“What happened?” She asked, brushing her fingers over the burns._

_He winces at the sting, but his memory won’t serve him. How did he do this? And how did he get here? He blinks as he searches his head for answers, nothing would make sense. He is filled with an overwhelming need to protect her, to hold her close to him and never be parted from her, but something about it all felt terribly wrong. _

_“This isn’t right…” he murmurs. This was a dream, a fantasy of some sort. The real Allura would never smile at him again, no matter how much he wished for it._

_The real Allura…_

_“Allura, tell me what’s going on!”_

_His claws grip at her wrist so tightly that he’s sure he must be hurting her, and she peers down at the prickling sensation, but says nothing._

_He grits his teeth, tasting his own blood on the edge of a fang. How could she sit there and look at him like that? She had been just like all the others, in the end._

_She left him in the Quintessence Field to die._

_Suddenly, Lotor is irate with anger. He throws her wrist down and lunges at her, grabbing her upper arms as if to shake her. “You…” he seethes, “Y_ou condemned me_!!!”_

_“Lotor…”_

_“You threw me away!!!” he roars, “The moment you were told a story befitting of my race!!!”_

_But then he had tried to kill her, and meant it._

_Lotor slams his fist into the flowers around them and squeezes, more red juice spilling over his fingers as he crushes the life from them. Fitting, he supposes. He was Galra, through and through, no matter what his genetics were. There was Altean blood on his hands. He could never deny it. It seeped into his wounds and stung bitterly. All those faces, all that pain. It would haunt him forever, locking him in a miserable, hellish prison of guilt. He had loathed himself. It was the only way, he repeated to himself at night, the only way he could guarantee their lives. He did what had to be done._

_Attempting to gain a more powerful position next to his father, had been in vain. Attempting to reason with the Voltron Coalition, a waste of his time. For a moment, just one moment, he had thought they – she – might let him explain. How he had no choice, that they would have all perished otherwise. _

_He didn’t care, truly, that she had left him there. It was nothing more or less than what he had intended to do to her, a decision he could respect at least. If the price was his life for hers, when all was said and done, he would happily have paid it._

_He simply wanted her to understand why._

_But the realisation had struck him far too late that Allura couldn’t understand, not even if she wanted to._

_She hadn’t seen what he’d seen, or lived what he’d lived. She could only interpret his actions the way he supposed most civilians might, with contempt. She lived such a wondrous life of compartmentalised good and evil, under the cruel delusion that she could save everyone. Perhaps she could. He remembered her face, how she couldn’t bring herself to look at him as he begged her. She couldn’t imagine a reality where he could ever have been right._

_Voltron would undoubtably take credit for the liberation of the Altean lives he had spent millennia risking his own for. From him, the monster that murdered them for power. _

_“It’s all over for them!” he roars, “Those Alteans! I was the last thing standing between them and my father’s witch! You might as well have sent them to their deaths!”_

_Still she sits there, not reacting to anything he says. _How dare she?

_Lotor curses himself. He really should know by now. That when it suits others to believe you are a monster, you may as well be one._

_ “_Well, Princess_?” he spat, “_Was I ever anything other than a monster in your eyes_?!”_

_He is so angry he could feel himself shaking. And too miserable to find the words to scream at her._

_“I thought you would listen...” He mutters finally, seething through gritted teeth._

_She shuffles herself a little nearer to him, and Lotor glares at her furiously as if to warn her away, his jaw set, locking the emotion away behind the hard mask. She ignores it, her hand touches his arm gently, her skirts now covered in red berry juice._

_Lotor shivers as he feels her press a simple kiss to his temple, and the resistance in his stiff and unyielding frame melts away with a tear as she slowly draws him into her arms and absorbs all of his anguish into her body, her hand lazily stroking his hair._

_“Sshh…” she says, “I’m listening now.”_

_It was hell, masquerading as heaven, he was sure. It wasn’t really her. But he no longer cared. He feels a tear run down his cheek as he nuzzles into her neck. He knows he could never truly deserve this, this affection from her. If he had any decency he would get up and walk away, but stars, it felt so wonderful and he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. He’d waited 10,000 deca-phoebs to learn how it felt to be loved. Maybe that was it. Maybe it had nothing to do with Alteans at all, he mused. Maybe, since meeting her, he had regressed into an insecure fool who was too selfish to shoulder her rejection._

_His silly fantasy had cost him his life._

_He didn’t care if this wasn’t real. If he was dead, or even just stark-raving mad, he would die a thousand times over if this could be his resting place. This is preferable to any hellish reality his life could ever throw at him. All the pain that he felt, all the pain that he caused._

_The conflict inside him finally broke him._

_“_I love you_!” he chokes, breaking out into wracking sobs like a small child, “_I never pretended to love you Allura, please, you must know that, I wanted peace… I would have done anything_…”_

_“I know that, my love.” She says, her voice calm and unwavering. They are both covered in red by now, lying back into the soft undergrowth and letting it soak in._

_Tracing a thumb over his cheeks to wipe away, he feels her brushing over the Altean markings that he didn’t deserve. It tingled gently at her touch, and then a little more as her hand rested over his cheek, that familiar blue glow seeping into his veins and engulfing his body in warmth, taking all of his pain and suffering away._

_“Why are you doing this?” he whispers, relaxing deeply into her energy, so much so he could almost fall asleep._

_She smiles down at him. “Because I trust you,” She kisses his temple again, “love you.” _

_At that, he leans across her blindly, twisting his body to kiss her. She sighs into him and holds him tighter against her, uncaring how their hands are spreading that sweet red stain over each other._

_“Promise me…” she says, caressing his cheek, her blue eyes staring into his, “Promise me you’ll trust me too.”_

_He pauses – if he had trusted her, truly trusted her, would they be here now?_

_Childhood plasticities in his brain told him it was wrong, that to trust anyone other than himself would bring him nothing but pain._

_He had been right before._

_He hesitates._

_“I... I will try…”_

_His response seems to make her beam, her happiness truly infectious, and she kisses him again, hands smoothing his shoulder blades, back arching towards him, as if they truly could be as they were before. _

_“I’m afraid we cannot stay.” She says after a while, continuing to stroke his cheek. “We can’t stay here Lotor.”_

_“Why?” He asks her, holding her a little closer. “I’d give anything to spend eternity here, with you.”_

_She frowns at him, her grip on his cheek tightening. “I won’t leave you here.” She tells him firmly. “I won’t let you die!”_

_The amount of energy she is channelling into him is becoming uncomfortable and he squirms in her grasp, but is entirely unable to free himself from it. “Allura…” he growls. His vision splits, and he roars in agony, “What are you doing? I don’t understand…”_

_“Come back to me, please!” She cries, “We don’t have much time!”_

_His ears are screaming, his vision is white, and somewhere in the distance, he is sure he can hear the roar of a lion._


	2. Chapter 2

The ghost of a hand sliding from his face is the first thing Lotor’s mind registers in the blackness. His own twitches against Sincline’s controls. The next is that he is spinning, wildly and out of control, around and around in circles, one limb of the giant mech rolling nauseatingly over the next, his blood thuds in his ears at odds with the lacking information from his eyes.

Everything is black, his ears are ringing, and he is paralysed where he sat. Through the din he can hear the cockpit alarms blaring. His lungs spasm against the smog and punch his body back to life. Smoke, he thinks, something is burning.

‘_You have to move_,’ his brain screams, ‘_you have to get out now!’_ Adrenaline was kicking in, redirecting his remaining blood to his muscles. Vision bleared, Lotor willed his eyes open, unclasped his stiff hands from the controls. The Quintessence in the atmosphere is so thick that seems to clog up his lungs when he finally inhales again and he realised that trying to stand so quickly was a horrendous idea, before he doubles over and vomits onto the floor. His helmet was long gone, and he doesn’t even think to look for it.

Dragging his hand over his chin as acid stings at his throat, Lotor leans into the pilot’s seat and holds hard as Sincline spins again and the gravity pushes him downwards. Voltron was neither visible nor being picked up by any of his scanners. The radio chatter between them had long fallen silent. A shiver runs down his back. Did that mean he had won?

He barely even remembered how they had entered the battle, let alone who won it. His mind wouldn’t recall the facts, or the words; they were all blurred, a soup of blue obscurity that he couldn’t make sense of. Only the familiar guttural pang of failure remained deep inside his gut, and Lotor knew. He could never admit to it, but he knew.

Voltron had won.

The damage done to the main cockpit was irreversible. If he wanted to live, he had to evacuate. Now.

Lotor’s foot brushed against something soft on the floor, and his stomach turned again as his eyes land on Allura, sprawled unconscious on the floor beneath him, her body curled around the base of the seat, her knee lying in the revolting pool of vomit he had just deposited there.

Lotor’s fists clench at his sides. ‘_Leave her,’_ his rational mind whispers to him, every statistic ever calculated indicated that he had a better chance of survival alone. Allura had outlived her usefulness to him, once and for all.

His legs won’t move and he curses. Lotor hated instinct. Clear decisions should be made on facts and numbers, not adrenaline levels or the aftermath of one’s lunch.

Damn it. Damn her.

“Allura?” He drops to his knees beside her, “Allura can you hear me?”

He grasped at her lifeless body and shook her, crawling up to her side and pulling her into his lap. Her breath is warm against his cheek, but her skin is deathly cold.

A small groan floated between them, and she peered up determinedly into his eyes through the cracked visor of her helmet.

“We have to go.” He says firmly, “Can you stand?”

Gripping at his arm and wincing painfully, Allura nodded, but it became obvious very quickly that she could not. Her legs try to buckle beneath her, and she stumbles.

Lotor heaves her arm around his shoulders and grips at her waist. “Come on.”

The dashboard lights up in a fiery inferno, and Lotor knows they have to go. He limped her from the cockpit, ignoring the pain in his own limbs.

Allura feels as if she is struggling to stay above water. She can hear the muffled crashes and thuds of Rift debris colliding with Sincline’s hull, her sense of balance can’t quite keep up with the rate at which the uncontrollable spinning of the ship is causing the floor to vanish from beneath them.

She had overdone it, that much was certain. It had taken far more effort than she expected. Then again, he had been almost impossible to reach. She leans on him, digging her shoulder into his to prop him upright as they make their way out of the cockpit. He is nearly as weak as she is, she can feel it in his starved muscles. But he’s here. 

“Can you breathe?” She asks him, feeling his respiratory rate rising against her side as their feet struggle for purchase against the wall which was now beneath them.

“Yes…” he hisses, although he barely managed to even convince himself.

The oxygen levels were dangerously low, far too low for any Altean to survive. The gas pipes hissed in multiple locations as the precious gas floated away into the vacuum of the Rift. For once in his miserable life, he thanked his Galra blood for its resilience in hypoxic environments.

“Where is Voltron??” He shouted above the noise.

Where in the seven hells is Voltron? The mech wasn’t visible, and despite a completely unfounded internal optimism that they might make an effort to rescue Allura, Lotor realised that Voltron had likely escaped the Rift before it too became completely non-operational.

“Gone.” She says, “We need to get to Sincline’s lower compartment. If we can disengage it, it may have taken less damage.” 

The ship is disintegrating around them, pieces of shrapnel falling from the escape chute panels. Lotor shrieks in pain as a heavy piece strikes him on the shoulder, sending them crashing to the floor. He sees more debris falling from the ceiling, and has just enough time to throw himself over her before it collides with them. It seems to be the remains of a ceiling vent hatch attached to a piece of airshaft pipe. The first burst of pain is almost anticlimactic, but the delayed onset is agony. At some point he has almost certainly acquired some fractured ribs that prickle dangerously towards his lungs. He braces his forearms to stop himself from collapsing over her under the weight of the metal, wincing to silently absorb the pain.

He is used to pain, he has been thoroughly broken by it before, but this is different. He could break as often as the universe wished, but he wouldn’t let it break her.

Dragging herself from under him, Allura throws her weight against the pipe, shifting it just enough for him to heave it form his shoulders with a strangled grunt. 

“Get up!” She says, pulling at his armour, “Come on!”

Allura’s stomach can feel it before she really knows it, and she screams as her feet are tipped over her head as Sincline spins again.

“We must be stuck in a katabatic current!” She calls, bracing herself as the force slams her body into the ceiling.

Lotor is thrown backwards towards the cockpit doors, claws screeching for grip against the metal. The force is enough to drag him slowly upwards, the tails of his armour billowing around his head.

“Give me your hand!” She screams, groaning to extend her arm as far as it will reach, “Lotor give me your hand!”

He can’t reach her, her hand is inches from his grasp before they are both catapulted through the air again. Lotor is barely aware of Allura’s arm linking around his waist, or her bayard flying past his ear. He braces himself to hit the floor again, trying to angle himself between it and her, and gasps as he realises that the tension on the bayard lash has broken their fall.

“I’m going to be sick if this doesn’t stop…” she mutters, clinging to him as the ship rolls over again.

“There’s no way we can propel ourselves out of it!” He says, curling her bayard in his fists, “We’ll have to disengage the compartment and hope we’ve generated enough rotational force to throw us clear!”

Allura’s expression is blank, and for a moment Lotor wonders if she has even heard him. “Well…” she says, her tone somewhat doubtful, “I suppose that might do it…” 

It takes him less than a tick to realise that she is looking at something over his shoulder, through the starboard porthole.

Her arms are around him before he can feel the full brunt of the impact, what was left of her energy throwing up a barrier between them and the outside world. He doesn’t feel his back collide with wall, with so much force that in any other scenario it would certainly have crushed him to pulp. Allura’s blue aura seeps into his skin, and he grips at her tightly, aware in so many ways how she was the only thing keeping him from his much-deserved demise.

Sincline gave a few more irregular somersaults, before finally righting itself, and they seemed to be drifting again.

Allura mutters a small prayer to the Sages of Oriande that the spinning has finally come to a stop.

“Are you alright?” She asks him. His arms are wrapped around her for dear life, just as if he couldn’t bear to let her go. She tried to ignore how much it made her heart ache.

“I think so…” he says, releasing her from his grip and recollecting himself.

The effort to stand on what was left of the Sinline infrastructure was a joint one, neither had much in the way of stamina left. Allura’s legs felt completely numb, and as much as she tried to support him, she realises that this time, she has well and truly overdone it.

She feels him growl as her grip on him slips away and her legs stop supporting her weight. “No…” he grunts as the additional weight nearly drags him to the ground.

Scooping his arm under her knees, presumably to carry her, Allura slaps him away half-heartedly. “I can walk!” She insists, “I can…”

She couldn’t.

Her body goes limp, and Lotor heaves her clumsily into his arms and runs. He doesn’t know how many times he is hit by falling shrapnel, all he knows is that he can’t stop, he has to go while he still can. He continues down deeper into the passageways of the ship. It creaks around them, its crumbling skeleton the only thing between them and oblivion. Something must have struck his head a while back, and he can feel a trickle of blood running down the back of his neck.

Lotor madly punches at the keypad of the leg compartment door, only to yank his hand away with a yelp when he felt his flesh burn – the sheer heat searing through his already burned gloves and also through a few layers of skin. He swears something foul, before gathering Allura up again and making for the last hope he can think of – the maintenance shaft would be the only way of getting down there now.

Levering a heavy metal hatch open and peering in, Lotor cannot see the bottom for an eyewatering amount of black smoke drifting in from the lower air vents. Neither of them would last long down there. If he was wrong, and there was no way to get into the lower ship, he knew he hadn’t the strength to climb back up again with her.

But he didn’t have a choice.

Muttering apologies to the princess, Lotor rearranges her over his shoulder, and grasps the shaft ladder, tentatively testing its strength.

He had to climb quickly. His adrenaline was running so high that he couldn’t feel the pain anymore, but his lungs were screaming for more oxygen. He coughed and spluttered, each and every rung was torture.

Stop, his body screams at him. Galra may be good at functioning in hypoxic environments, yet it simply served as another pitiful reminder that Lotor was not, in fact, full Galra. His heart was pounding, his lungs tearing, his muscles cramping. _He couldn’t…_

His vision blurs, his hand slips from the ladder rung.

He barely feels himself hit the metal floor. 

Nor does he know how long he lies unconscious for in the bottom of that maintenance shaft. Pain floods through his back and shoulders as his senses return, his chest still burning. He had to take small, shallow breaths, he knew, in order to reduce the rick of a lung perforation, but that simply wasn’t possible in here. Allura has fallen on top of him, thank the Ancients, and is quite unknowingly contributing to the pain in his ribs.

They could quite possibly be the death of each other.

Pushing her gently aside, Lotor crawls to inspect the shaft exit hatch. He had to throw his weight against it several times to get it to open, and with barely enough strength to hold Allura, he collapsed to the floor again, throwing the hatch door closed and shutting the smoke behind him.

The air is clearer in here, and as he had hoped, it was considerably less damaged. The flush oxygen function seems to be working, and Lotor breathes a sigh of relief as his lungs fill with cool, clean air.

The leg compartment cockpit is dark and cold, left entirely as it was when he ejected Ezor and Zethrid. A cursory diagnostic test revealed everything Lotor had feared. All four boosters are damaged, the primary and secondary engines are burned out... Comms are out, navigation... Nothing, nothing is operational. He slams his fist into the panel in frustration - he knew it was more than he could possibly hope for.

Lotor forces himself to stay calm. There is a consistent oxygen supply, and nothing is on fire. He grimaces, hardly reasons to be cheerful, but it was compatible with life, in the short-term at least. He hurriedly inputs the codes to override the anti-disengage program into the console. The ship grumbles and clunks, but finally comes away from the rest of Sincline. Lotor watches half-heartedly, as the mech that had brought them together, floated away into the desolation of the Rift.

Dropping into the pilot’s seat exhausted, Lotor takes short shallow gasps to ameliorate the pain in his body. Sincline is well out of sight before he finally looks down at the princess in his lap. Still she didn’t stir. It was warm where their forms touched, but nowhere else.

“Allura…” he says, rubbing her arm gently, “You’re safe now.”

Lotor grimaces again, he really should refrain from making promises he can’t keep. He doubts Allura would be interested in any promises he had to offer her anyway.

Pulling her helmet from her head, he checks her pulse just under her jaw. Feathery, weak. He had been so busy trying to shield her from disintegrating pieces of Sincline that he had never even considered the possibility that she might die from self-induced over-exhaustion. Her abilities were such that he had never considered that possible. She had revived entire planets before, he was sure that he deserved nor required such effort. Unless…

Unless he had died.

He swallows.

He died in Sincline. The realisation was cold and tasteless. Logically, he realised, there was no possible way he could have taken a hit from that much Quintessence and lived. He bit his lip. She had given him her life, intentionally or otherwise.

“You should have left me here.” He murmurs, adjusting his position slightly to hold her more comfortably and brushing untidy wisps of her hair from her face.

He had to get her warmer.

Each ship was fully installed with emergency provisions as a bare minimum. Lotor goes to the side of the cockpit, and pulls on a lever in the row of storage lockers. The lever opens with a click, and opens out into a bare medical cot. He lays Allura’s body onto it, pondering how small she looked on something designed for a Galra patient. Pulling the emergency blankets out of the lockers, he straps her into the cot’s safety harness, and wraps the blankets around her. Peering into the control panel, Lotor frowns. Like all the other tech, it was completely fried. No heated cot then. Lotor has her vitals logged to his vambrace – the are stable. He sighs, this would have to do for now.

The Rift is as silent as the grave. How ironic, Lotor thinks, when in all likelihood that is exactly what it was. A fool’s graveyard. The ship grumbles around them, clearly unhappy and unprepared its surprise occupants.

This was the first opportunity Lotor had had to think since entering the Rift, and it was less than enlightening. His arms were heavy, and somehow too light without Allura in them. He grits his teeth as the ugly recollections of their actions replayed themselves in his head. He had tried to kill her, and he nearly succeeded. Guilt panged deep inside his gut as he lowered himself weak-kneed into the seat again.

He had made peace with his fate, in a way. When he realised it was all over. He was ready to let the Rift carry him away. The universe would no doubt hear of his failures and wrongdoings, but he wouldn’t have to see them in the mirror for the rest of his wretched life. He wouldn’t have to face the wrath of the Galra or shame of the Alteans, he would just disappear into the same obscurity he was born from, and that would be that.

Of course, Allura had to put a stop to that, just like she disrupted all of his plans.

His fists tightens in his lap – all of that was gone now. The very least he could do was give her the very same thing she had given him.

A chance.


	3. Chapter 3

An inspection of the ship yielded almost no joy whatsoever. The hull was damaged and not airtight in several places. Those he would have to fix externally with fibre glass putty, and a strong safety line. The oxygen and water refiltration systems would have to be next, followed by the Quintessence repulsion shields.

Lotor pinches his forehead. This list is endless.

It would help if it wasn’t so bloody cold in here.

A quick glance down at his vambrace concluded that the ambient temperature in the cockpit was 271 euligrade, or two degrees below water-freezing temperature. He curls his fingers into his hand in an effort to ignore it. Unfortunately the thermoregulation systems were far down his list of priorities by now.

The Rift blares at them from the outside, as Lotor makes a mental checklist of things he would need to do if they were to survive. By now, He has spread the emergency mats and blankets into a pile on the floor as a sleeping area. His eyes dart to the emergency rations locker and his stomach grumbles – Lotor had no idea when is last meal had been, and he was painfully hungry. Biting his lip sternly, he turns away again. Emergency rations were exactly that, and he had no intention of wasting any of it on himself.

He peers over his shoulder. Her vitals had remained stable since boarding, but still Allura remains unconscious, her skin pale, her chest rising and falling slowly in deep sleep under the blankets. “Hold on Princess.” He mutters under his breath.

Voltron may yet come back for her, he contemplates. He supposed they might take the risk for her. A small part of him would be furious if they didn’t. And yet another small part of him on a far darker level might understand.

And if they didn’t come back, he would have to find a way out of here on his own.

He needed Allura – that much was obvious. Her powers could rebuild the ship in quintants, and take them back to their reality before too much time had lapsed. His fingers curl into fists. If only he hadn’t been such an absent-minded fool in Oriande, he might have saved them both.

He grumbles to himself. For now, he would have to make do with his own two hands.

Arming himself with a can of fibre-glass foam, Lotor pulls a spare helmet over his head and attaches a safety line to his belt. 

Quintessence exposure was going to be his main concern. He couldn’t get them out of here if he went stark raving mad. He decided he was going to have to do this in small increments, a few minutes at a time at most, with decontamination breaks in between.

He had done this many times before, in simulations as a youth, and then in real emergencies. Most of them self-induced, he supposed. Flying through solar flares was tactical genius, but it had left his hull a melted mess that he had had to repair before he could get back to the cruiser. Zethrid had almost shot him when they tallied the rest of the damage. It wasn’t the first time.

She would definitely shoot him if their paths ever crossed again. 

He forced himself to concentrate on the safety checks. Pragmatically, there were things he couldn’t go back in time and change. He would simply have to live with it.

Stepping out through the air lock, Lotor lets the lack of gravity lift his limbs and carry him upwards. The Quintessence radiation goes right through his armour and he is overwhelmed by the feeling that his body is burning. For a moment, he forgets why he came out here. His skin feels like it is blistering and being ripped from him. The pain is excruciating, and he is drowning in it. Lotor screams, and a hand reaches down to his firearm automatically. How could he have been so stupid?

Biting down through it, Lotor forces himself to concentrate on breathing. ‘_Stay calm_…’ he repeats to himself shakily, fogging up the visor of his helmet, “_You can take it_.”

Pain was in the mind. Polen-Bol. The immemorable number of times he had been battered, and broken - he knew from experience that he could will himself through almost anything, he just had to be patient. His brain would adjust in a minute, adrenaline would kick in and he would find the strength to ignore it. He inhales deeply as he reseizes control of his faculties. Panic was a ludicrous waste of oxygen. If he could take one more tick, then he could take one more dobosh. And if he could take one more dobosh, then he could take a varga. 

He could do this. He could.

He blinks as his eyes adjust to the bright light through the sound of his own raspy breaths. The Rift was no less beautiful than the first time he and Allura had pioneered their Sincline ship. Billions of bright blue orbs colliding in a billion symphonies. He let himself float there, bathing in the beauty of the radiation. If he closed his eyes, it almost felt like the warmth he had felt in his hallucination of Altea…

He frowned. Reminiscing was also a waste of oxygen, and he had a task to fulfil. 

Suspended at the end of his safety line, Lotor’s hand finds some grip on the wire, and pull himself around 180 degrees to view the ship. It was an even bigger mess than he had imagined. Enough to make any pilot curse. Peering down at the can of fibre-glass foam tied to his belt, he isn’t sure this is going to make a dent in it. 

Lotor prioritises the most significant damage. The objective was to make the cabin airtight. Anything else could wait. It took him approximately four vargas in total, with decontamination breaks, to fill the cracks in the hull. It also gave him the opportunity to give closer inspection to the outside of the ship. Not that there was anything he could get ecstatic about. There was a lot of loose debris – valuable material that he would have to bring on board if he could. Sod the exposure.

His body was getting more and more used to it every time he disembarked. It was less uncomfortable now, more like a background niggling that he could ignore. In some ways, Lotor hypothesised that it was actually making his body more durable, and more connected to the atmosphere around him. He didn’t feel exhausted when he pulled himself back into the airlock, he didn’t feel hungry, or thirsty. He even began to feel optimistic about his ability to survive out here.

It’s only when he opens the airlock to step back into the cabin that he realises that he has overdone it. Stepping around the pieces of shrapnel that he has collected from the ship’s outer frame as the gravity reactivates, he is actually looking forward to checking Allura’s progress.

Pulling his helmet from his head, it is the blue glint of a reflection in the helmet’s surface that alerts him to the anomaly, and makes him look again.

Holding the helmet up to his face, the soft blue glow intensifies, and Lotor almost drops it. Slamming it down onto the bench, he yanks his gloves from his hands and peers down in wonder at the pale glow emitted by his skin.

“_What the_?” He mutters. He had clearly been outside for too long, he would have to be more careful in future.

He felt fine though, and he really did need to check on Allura.

That is until he sees her.

She hasn’t move since he last checked her. Still out cold, with no signs of coming around, all vitals still stable. His eyes settle on her markings – maybe a slightly paler pink than they usually were and something inside him simmers to the surface.

‘_You loved her, and she threw you away_…’ his own voice taunts him from inside his head. ‘_And now she wants you for a Coalition prisoner_ _so she can keep you like a pet for the rest of your miserable life.’ _

She was helpless, defenceless, just lying there. He could have the revenge he longed for right now.

It would be so easy to break her neck…

_No._

Lotor rips himself away and strides back into the airlock, sealing it from the inside and throwing himself down onto the bench. No matter how much her betrayal had stung, he couldn’t allow himself to do something he would regret again. Murdering her was hardly the Altean way, he reluctantly concluded. Besides, he had no intention of spending the rest of his living existence trapped in a ship with her corpse. He crosses his arms and tries to get some sleep. He would just have to wait it out. 

* * *

Lotor figures that by the time he is feeling physically hungry again, that the radiation has probably worn off enough to make it safe to enter the cabin. Sleep, however, had remained elusive. He allows his eyes to fall upon Allura from a good distance, and waits for the voices again. He listens, but it is all just the usual contempt. Hurt yes, betrayal, yes, but not murderous. Fantastic.

His hunger has finally got the better of him, he concedes, and he picks a ration bar and a bottle of water out of the storage locker.

By his calculations, one person living sparingly on these rations could survive for a period of six phoebs. Two people had three phoebs at most. That wasn’t much time to make the ship functional. He decided that he would take the bare minimum to survive, just until Allura woke. After that, well, he didn’t really have a plan.

The oxygen filtration system, buried right at the heart of the ship below the cockpit, had actually taken minimal damage. A little tinkering here and there with electrics had brought it back to full working function.

His bodily functions, however, are what draw his attention to the issues with the water filtration system. That would have to be next.

Getting into it, was another thing entirely. Lotor had to spend half a quintant pulling up the floor panels in order the access the pipes. They had three quarters of a tank of water, which was pleasing, but it was also leaking. Composite had managed to block the leak, but all of this was going to require a lot more work.

Sighing in frustration, Lotor rolls onto his back amidst the stray collection of tools and clasps at his forehead, wiping the sweat away. “Why can’t you just wake up?” He snarls, directing his irritation at the unconscious princess. “We could be out of here by now!”

This was hopeless. They were both going to die in here.

A tiny, scuttling noise registers in Lotor’s ear and he sits bolt upright, eyes darting around looking around for the source of it. It sounded like a mouse – which wasn’t possible, unless one of Allura’s pets had accidentally scurried onboard without Ezor and Zethrid noticing.

He was well aware of the potential side effects of being stranded. Many stranded before him had gone mad and hallucinated terrible things. He wondered if this was the last shred of his sanity flaking away.

He hears it again, and moves himself silently into a crouching position, closing his eyes to better utilise his ears. He briefly found himself wishing that Kova was here. The noises were coming from underneath a propped-up piece of floor panel, and Lotor swipes the panel away quickly with a clawed hand.

The little creature he finds underneath are entirely not what he expected.

On first inspection, there are nothing but pieces of scrap metal, rogue hexkeys and ratchets that had rolled from his reach when he pulled up the floor. He very nearly replaces the floor panel, convinced he must be hearing things, until out of the corner of his eye, Lotor was sure he saw the metal moving…

His weapon is cocked and aimed squarely on the source of the tiny scratching noises in milli-ticks. Lotor feels his nose twitch as the pieces of metal arrange themselves into a bipedal humanoid formation and tilt their ‘head’ to the side, as if they were peering up at him over the barrel of the gun.

Scrunching his brow and blinking several times just to check he wasn’t seeing things, Lotor lowers his firearm. Trying to move as stealthily as he could, he grabs the nearest hollow item he can find. His knife makes short work of an empty water bottle, and with one quick flick of his wrist, the tiny lifelike contraption is trapped inside it.

Sliding a piece of panel underneath it and catching it as if it were a spider, Lotor lifts it up to his eye level. “How fascinating…” he murmurs, his expression of disdain morphing into one of amusement as it quivers inside the bottle.

It must be the Quintessence, he thinks. It was utterly mesmerising, how even inanimate objects could come to life after a period of low exposure. The Voltron Lions even came to grow their own souls. Ghosts in machines. Lotor’s eyes light up with a childlike curiosity, he would have given anything to study the little creature, but unfortunately, time was of the essence and his attention was better turned to the water systems.

He places the miniature mech down on the futon mat and lifts the water bottle, allowing it to scurry off to the back of the cockpit.

He hadn’t dared go outside again since his cold night-cycle in the airlock. The risk simply wasn’t worth it, and neither was the frostbite. 

Lotor resisted sleep for as long as possible. A few vargas every quintant would do, it was really too cold in here to achieve anything else, but all he really managed were doboshes. He puffed into his hands and rubbed them together briskly. He found himself absurdly jealous of Allura, just lying there, blissfully unaware how close they both were to being lost to oblivion forever. In the moments where he couldn’t busy himself enough to ignore the doubts that narked at him, he considered.

What would Allura do, if they ever made it back to their reality?

Lock him up and throw away the key? Or perhaps a death sentence would be a more potent message.

He couldn’t imagine Allura allowing that, but there were plenty in the Voltron Coalition that would vote in favour, she may not have much choice in the matter.

He tries to divert his attention from the thought. If she did ever get them out of the Rift. There was no foreseeable scenario in which this ended well for him, that much was clear.

He presses his lips together firmly. Untangling himself from her, hurt more than he ever thought it could. Fortunately, he was used to pain, and she could still outlive one last purpose.

But he would have to be prepared to run, if he was to survive.


	4. Chapter 4

_When Allura’s eyes open, she knows immediately that she has been here before._

_Orange and pink hues of light spill through the stained windows, onto the many statues of faithful sages, their names all forgotten by time. The inscriptions on the stone walls, Altean glyphs from a time long past. Allura feels rather than knows this place. She had hoped to find herself in this place again, only not quite so soon._

_Oriande._

_Her gut tightens as she moves silently through the barren halls. Something about it is decidedly off. She isn’t sure if it is the colour of the stones, or the layout of the halls that puzzles her. Deeper and deeper into the winding chasms she walks, footstep after footstep, like her feet are taking her somewhere without proper participation from her brain. The statues glare down at her, unmoving, but Allura can feel their judgements raining down upon her shoulders and she shudders._

_“Guide me.” She begs them, her voice echoing off the walls, “If I am a fool, if I am wrong, please…” she buries her feelings deep inside her again and breathes, “Help me do the right thing.”_

_Allura closes her eyes and inhales another deep breath. She must be seeing Oriande for a reason, she thinks. She must let herself see what wishes to be seen._

_It seems like hours of exploring the convoluted passageways and grand halls before she finally sees another living being. Allura’s feet refuse to move as a tall, dark shadow casts itself over her path and a cold shiver dances over her skin. She immediately knows who it belongs to, without having to look upwards._

_Lotor stood before her, his expression almost jovial, like he had been expecting her. Silvery whisps of his hair catch the twilight over his shoulders. There is no anger, or hate in his eyes, and for that she breathes a sigh of relief, but neither is there the love she had grown used to. He reminded her of a sentry that had been reset to factory settings after a gross malfunction, drives wiped clean, ready to be sent back out into service._

_He gives a small smile when he sees her, stepping from the shadows, and bows in deference. “Princess,” he says, offering her his hand, “We meet at last.”_

_Her back is rigid and a million questions bubble to the surface. How could you murder hundreds of innocent people? How could you walk into my life and make me believe you loved me?_

_She swallows them down and breathes._

_“Lotor?” She asks, eyes following the intricate patterns embroidered over his shoulders, “You’re alright?”_

_ His clothing was entirely Altean. He wore a livery in dark navy buttoned across his chest, with burgundy about his shoulders with smart, gold trim. Navy and gold vambraces and boots to his elbows and thighs, a single gold pocket watch chain across his ribs. Only the Royal Guild of Alchemists of her father’s time were allowed to wear those colours, she remembered, a proud reminder of their status as the planet’s most highly honoured scholars. He exuded confidence and power, like he always had, but here, she realises it is a different kind of power, one that thrums from beneath his skin. She wondered if this is what he would have looked like had he grown up on Altea. A powerful Alchemist, like his mother had been. And every bit the prince she had dreamed of since girlhood._

_“Well I wouldn’t say that.” He answers, as she tentatively gives him her hand._

_“What is this?”_

_“I am here to guide you through the last task of Oriande.” He says, kissing her hand, before straightening up to his usual height and tucking her hand onto his arm._

_Allura has already passed the tests of Oriande, why would it want to test her again?_

_Allura forces herself to stay calm as he leads her further down into the castle. “Something isn’t right.” She tells him, her eyes peering into the elaborate etchings in the stone stairwells, “I can feel it.”_

_The walls were still standing, in this part of the castle anyway, but Allura could hear their wails, crying out for the dignity they had lost._

_Lotor’s gaze focusses on her as he listens. “This place hasn’t been the same since my mother desecrated it.” He says, “Everything that meant anything is gone. It may as well be a graveyard now.” _

_Allura was about to ask him how he came to be here – maybe he was nothing but a spirit now, a remnant of what once was._

_Lotor steers her towards a large arched doorway in the stone and heaves back the rusty bolts holding it shut._

_Beyond it a snowstorm is raging, blowing flakes far enough into the castle for a few to land on her cheeks. She is sure they are too far within the castle to be anywhere near an exit, and that there was no snow, only starlight streaming through the windows when she arrived._

_Allura takes a deep breath in an effort to calm herself. This isn’t real. See what wishes to be seen, she reminds herself._

_“Shall we?” He asks, and Allura finally manages to force her feet to move._

_Icy air hits her lungs as she steps through the door, and a harsh wind slams into her ears. She immediately shivers, and bites her lip to ensure Lotor cannot sense it. He cannot feel the cold at all, it seems, nor does he falter as they step from stone into deep crunching snow._

_Allura jumps and grips his arm as she hears an animalistic snarl behind her. A canine creature with bared fangs, crouches, waiting to pounce. It does not even notice them, its cold, yellow eye is fixated on a group of terrified people, each taking it in turns to test the strength of the ice frozen over a vast expanse of water, and arguing amongst each other. Looking frantically over her shoulder, the door back to the warmth of the castle was gone._

_Allura feels sick to her stomach._

_“Six people.” Lotor says, voice smooth and carefree as they step into the fray, “Must cross the ice in order to escape the beast.”_

_“Lotor no…” she whispers, untangling her arm from his, “What is this?”_

_“The ice will stand the weight of three, before it cracks.”_

_Her fists curl at her sides. “_Lotor what have you done?_!” She screams, tears streaming from her eyes. Seeing what wishes to be seen be damned. Hadn’t her people suffered enough? Hadn’t he done enough, that he had to hold innocent people over her like bargaining chips?_

_He is unmoved by her words, as if he hasn’t even heard her. “You must choose which must survive, and which must die.”_

_Six Alteans – if you could call them that. Haggard, frostbitten, thin, almost wasting away as if they had been starved. Three men and three women of varying ages, and two children, so small she almost didn’t see them, crouched at the feet of the adults. Allura could feel their shivers in her very bones._

_There was something vacant in Lotor’s eyes. None of the fire and passion she was used to seeing in them. This incarnation of him may appear Altean, but it was completely morally devoid, and moreover completely unaware that it was morally devoid. Cruel, even, entertained by others’ misery. A monster in fine clothing._

_It hurts, so very much to see him for what he was._

_How could she have risked her life to come back for him, for this?_

_She buried her disgust, and chose to hold her tongue. This isn’t real, she reassured herself. This is just a vision that she has to see. Lotor wasn’t an alchemist, and he surely wasn’t in Oriande. There was something to be learned here, she was sure. She just had to endure it until she learned what its purpose was._

_She can solve this, she know she can._

_“Okay…” Allura breathes. “Six people. Four adults, two children. But only three may cross.”_

_He nods._

_The two children account for the weight of one adult, they are least likely to break the ice, and logic certainly applies that they be spared first. “I will send the two children first, simultaneously.” She says._

_“Quite right.”_

_Lotor twitches an eyebrow at the family, and the children, shivering and crying, begin to wander over the ice. A dark creaking sound echoes and fills Allura’s heart with dread. The two children break into a run, and throw themselves at the bank on the other side, and she breathes a sigh of relief._

_Two down, four to go._

_The ice can take two._

_“Four to go…” she mutters, her breath condensing in front of her face, “The ice can take two. Four to go, the ice can take two…”_

_There is nothing in sight she can use to assist the Alteans crossing. Nothing she can fight the creature with. Nothing she can do to strengthen the ice._

_Allura seals her lips in a tight line. Is there any way to ensure the creature leapt onto the ice, and not the people? Surely one would have to stand on the ice as bait, and drown with it. She realises then that they would all still die, for there were three surviving adults on the other side of the lake from the children. The children would die without the adults, and the adults would not leave the children._

_“There is no solution.” She says, turning back to Lotor, who is observing the freezing group with an entertained look on his face. “A true Altean could never choose.”_

_“And yet if you don’t,” he glances at the face of his pocket watch, “you will condemn them all.” He says, his voice like liquid silk as it left goose bumps on her skin, “Time is running out, Princess. You have to choose.”_

_“I can’t.” she says, “I won’t.”_

_“Everyone, must, choose.”_

_“What? Like you did?!” She shudders, as angry tears roll down her cheeks, “You’ve made your point Lotor. Now let them go!”_

_“Let me ask you; when you came here, did you seek justification?” he asks her. He tilts his head as if to mock her, and the creature snaps impatiently. “That I truly was what you thought I was?”_

_She is silent, ignoring the bitter cold that immersed them both._

_“Have you not noticed, that the creature will just as happily eat you or I, as any of them?” He asks. For his tone, he might as well have asked her what colour livery suited him best. “For here we are nothing but monsters in our turn.”_

_“Do you think that will intimidate me?” She snaps, “If you mean to frighten me into making a choice, you will not succeed.”_

_He rolls his eyes arrogantly, clucking his tongue as he tucks his pocket watch back into his livery._

_“I simply wish to suggest Princess, that martyrdom, while it may absolve you of responsibility, does not solve the problem.”_

_Allura ignores him, her eyes own settle on the beast that Lotor had threatened her with. It is the first time Allura has thought to inspect it properly, having torn her eyes from her suffering people. It is feral, rabid, wretched. Ready to kill in under a tick. Its heckles twitch over its back as it growls and snaps again, drooling saliva falling from its jaws._

_It is thin, she thinks. She isn’t even sure how she notices under its thick coat. It is all but skin and bone, its eyes sunken into its skull as it stalks its prey, creeping closer and closer, as if it thinks it goes undetected._

_It is starving._

_“I’ll fight it.” She says after a while, swallowing the lump in her throat, “I’ll fight it myself.”_

_This one does seem to tickle Lotor’s interest. “Oh?”_

_“It looks weak. If I can kill it the ice will allow the children to cross back again.” _

_He chuckles. “You will fight it with your bare hands?”_

_“If that’s what I have to do.”_

_He raises an eyebrow with a twitch of smirk on his lips when he sees her angry defiance. “Suit yourself.”_

_Allura takes a deep breath and tucks the wild strands of hair behind her ears. She has long forgotten how wrong this was, how wrong all of this was. Oriande would never ask her to do this. Adrenaline rushes through her veins and thudded in her ears – if she had to kill to protect her people, so be it._

_She circles the creature, taking the slow, soft steps of a predator to place herself between it and the people she swore to protect. One wrong move, one slow reflex, and it would eat her alive. How will she kill it, before it kills her? She could try to choke it, she supposed, and cut off the blood supply to its brain. She would take considerable wounds in the process. Blows to its head would end in a similar scenario, as would going for its eyes. If she could break its jaw, perhaps she might have a chance._

_Snow balls beneath her feet and she curses under her breath. The creature has understood her intentions by now, and turns its full attention towards her, crouching to the ground, its eyes follow her, empty._

_Allura starts, her grip falters. Perhaps she has misunderstood this task entirely._

_Maybe it’s not a monster at all._

_Maybe it’s hungry, and frightened._

_She grits her teeth. _Maybe_ she is an idiot._

_She sighs as she peers into its eyes and it growls, warning her. Warning her that she was indeed as stupid as she thought she might be._

_Lotor has turned himself away, as if he cannot bear to watch. He glances at her through lidded eyes, but says nothing. And yet there is a flicker of something in them that she just can’t place. He thinks she has failed._

_Maybe he isn’t…_

_Maybe he isn’t a monster either._

_Turning her back on the beast entirely, Allura marches towards Lotor, fists curling as she tries to kick the snow from her heels. What if all this time, the test is not about the monster?_

_“What are you doing?” He utters, eyes wide and startled as she throws her arms around his neck and presses her lips to his blindly. He loved her, she believes that, no matter what he did or said, and Ancients, she loved him. If she had to show him, then that is exactly what she would do._

_He was the monster, trapped, starved and tortured, until nothing of his own nature remained. He appeared to her as a sacred guardian of Oriande, only to taunt her with reflections of his own memories._

_He staggers backwards, their bodies collide and he gasps, his calm mask shattering at her aggressive show of affection. Each kiss coaxes tortured breath from his body, and she uses the slight parting of his lips to kiss him deeper._

_She is sure she has never heard anything sweeter when he moans softly against her and finally moves his lips against hers, gently at first, and then just as aggressively as she and Allura is sure her soul is burning. Her hands fist in his hair to pull him closer and it feels like heaven to finally have him back in her arms._

_“Please don’t do this…” she whispers against him, fingers curling into his livery, “You can stop this I know you can…”_

_He is afraid, she can see it in his eyes. “You can never pass this test like that.” He says, a tear running down his cheek, “Allura please, you must choose.”_

_Her eyes read his in a tick. “You’re afraid.” She says, gripping his face in her hands and wiping the tear away with her thumb, “Tell me why!”_

_Still he says nothing, his hand rising to hold hers over his cheek. “Please!” she begs him, “You can tell me anything Lotor! Tell me and I’ll protect you I promise!”_

_Allura feels his sigh wracking through her body too. “It’s too late Princess.” He shudders under her touch, “It’s too late.”_

_The last thing Allura remembers is Lotor shielding her body with his own, and the sound of her own scream as the creature sank its fangs into his neck. _


	5. Chapter 5

Allura wakes with a flinch. Her body was drenched in sweat, and she was immediately aware of being far too hot.

She wriggles an arm free from the thick blankets that swaddled her, her fingers shakily undoing the safety harness that held her down. Swinging her legs from the cot, Allura’s hands nurse the splitting headache that pounded against her skull.

Where was she?

The cabin was dim in standby mode, but this wasn’t the Sincline ship she had helped build. This was a far earlier prototype, but its design was blander, larger, designed for Galra pilots. It was functional, she supposed, in the usual Galra militaristic fashion. It’s cold, somehow, lifeless. It wasn’t hers, she thought. This was entirely Lotor’s.

_‘How had he created this on his own?’_ She wondered. It took an immense amount of alchemic skill to transform a raw comet into a functional ship. While she had always believed Lotor capable of harnessing his latent alchemic ability, he could never have done this himself.

A shiver worked its way down her spine. _That_ was a terrifying thought.

And if Lotor had another way of building comet ships, why had he needed her?

The crackling screens and error logs blared at her in Galra, a language she had a tenuous grasp of at best. She wipes the sleep from her eyes with the back of her sleeve. Lotor was nowhere to be seen. He must be on board, she reasons, no one else could have strapped her into a medical cot.

A warm trickle of something runs down her neck, and her disorientated hand bats at it carelessly. The cockpit spins, lines blur, and she slumps against the wall.

Grappling to gain some traction, Allura’s eyes widen at the sight of her fingers smearing blood down the panel. Her hand shoots back to her ear, and the cold air moving against it stops her hand dead in its tracks.

She winced - it hurt dreadfully. She pressed her eyes shut again in an effort to clear her vision, but still it wouldn’t focus. The last thing she remembered was an asteroid colliding with the starboard hull. Shielding them from the force from the collision must have drained her of all her energy.

If that was true, she was lucky that she had walked away at all.

_“Allura?” _

Her hazy vision registers a figure appearing from the airlock. The voice… she knew his voice, but it was muffled, like she was trying to listen to it underwater.

_“Are you alright?” _

At least she thinks that’s what he asks.

What on Earth had she done?

She had saved a mass-murderer from certain death.

His body language is uncertain, like he wants to support her but daren’t touch her. Allura preferred for now that he didn’t. 

“Lotor…” she murmurs, the heel of her palm digging into her bleeding ear. _Ancients this pain_. “Where are we?”

“In the Rift.” He says matter-of-factly, voice laced in that smooth concern that she was so sure he peppered his tone with to all of his ‘allies’, his helmet tucked neatly under his arm. “Sincline has taken a huge amount of damage. I haven’t managed yet to return it to functionality.”

“We’re trapped in the Rift?”

“Four quintants and counting.”

Allura’s world slows down. Cold suddenly bites at her fingers, and she regrets throwing the blankets away. She hadn’t exactly formulated a plan for extracting Lotor from the Rift. Leaving him had been unthinkable. She had been prepared to incapacitate Lotor and drag him back to the blue lion if she had to.

She hadn’t thought that he might already be dead.

Allura drives her bloody palm into her forehead. Reviving him had been a stupid move on her part. She knew her power was already depleted as it was, and then the asteroid must have finished her off.

Keith and the others might have been prepared to leave Lotor, but there was no way they would ever leave her.

And yet Voltron was long gone.

The Quintessence Rift was an expanse greater than space and time. They were drifting freely, at a speed they couldn’t measure. The statistical probability of anyone being able to find them by chance here, was next to none.

Keith had said that Lotor had made his choice. Now she had made hers. 

Lotor looked haggered, aged almost, thin lines of concentration drawn into his face. She hadn’t had time to think about how she might even begin to speak to him. She had had a million questions to ask him, and now Allura couldn’t even so much as utter one of them.

His armour was irreparably damaged, and yet his demeanour was so cool and brisk that it was impossible to imagine that they had fought to the death only four quintants earlier. She expected, or rather hoped, that he would barely be able look at her for shame, but no. That same calm eye-contact persevered. She supposed that was about right.

How could a man who had heartlessly murdered thousands of innocent people, love her like he had?

If he even had.

Uncertainty stabbed at her and left her cold. She wanted him to love her, maybe it would leave him with a shred of remorse for what he had done. But what frightened her more than anything, was that he could wrap himself up in such elaborate lies that she genuinely could not tell.

She had no idea.

What did it matter now? He deserved to die, she thought. Even if he had somehow convinced her to care for him, even if some mortal slither of him loved her, nothing could undo what he had done. She needed answers, she told herself. If Lotor dies now, she will never know what circumstances perturbed him to the murder of her people. Moreover, death was a measly punishment for his crimes. She has to keep him alive, so that he can answer for them.

Only a small part of her, very deep down, can admit to her selfishness.

Allura shakes that thought from her mind.

“We seem… normal…” she says, inspecting one of her hands like she expects to find fault with it, and clutching onto her stomach as her vision doubles. Continuous quintessence radiation was as dangerous as it sounded, but Allura felt fine. Just dizzy, she conceded. No madness, no corruption, no – she hesitates - wanton desires. Just stomach-turning nausea. “Do you think we’ve somehow acclimatised to it?”

Lotor’s mind darts back to his hand preparing to wrap itself around her neck, and shakes his head. “I think the alchemic energy you used to restore my life has had some – residual effects.” He says, “I was able to tolerate the atmosphere for long enough to repair the hull without issue.”

Perhaps the bit about momentarily wanting to kill her was better left unsaid. 

“We need to make exiting the Rift our first priority.” She says, shifting her weight from the cot, “What’s the ship’s statu-”

Allura’s world spins after two strides, and she crumples to the floor, arms flailing to find something upright to support her. Acid splashes at her throat, and she swallows it back down with a grimace.

“Allura?”

Lotor’s hand is cupping her arm gently, and Allura bats him away. “I’m fine!”

She isn’t fine.

“Your ear is still bleeding.” He frowns.

“I’ll be fine, just, give me a moment!”

Biting his lip, Lotor rises and turns on his heel while she grapples with the edge of the cot to pull herself up. She clearly neither requires nor wants his assistance. 

“What’s the ship’s status?”

“We have functional aeration and gravitational systems, but that’s about it.” He reports, “I’m working to repair the transcender. All other repairs can wait until we’ve re-ent...”

Another ungraceful thud interrupts him mid-sentence, and he peers behind him to find Allura on the floor again. “Until we’ve re-entered.” 

She must have some inflammation of her inner ear, he surmises. He had spent weeks as a youth not knowing up from down when a nine-foot pureblood clouted him across the skull in a training exercise.

“I should be able to mend these within a few vargas.” She mumbles, “I’ll need the schematics for this ship.

From down there, she won’t be mending anything.

Lotor taps a few commands into his vambrace holoscreen, and Allura receives them instantly. “I’ll start preparing straight away…” she grins nervously, ignoring the responsible face she could feel him pulling, “just as soon as I ascertain which way is up.”

* * *

Watching Allura fall from one side of the cockpit to the other lost its comedic charm after a few vargas.

He had ignored her for the most part, completing basic repairs on the water system in the time it had taken to get herself to the bathroom. They had already been trapped here for four quintants, what was a few vargas more?

Amusing as it was for him, Lotor admitted it wasn’t getting her any closer to getting them out of the Rift.

And all this clattering was giving him a headache. 

“May I, Princess?” he asked, offering his hand pointedly.

Her eyes flashed up at him fiercely. “I don’t need your help.”

“Then perhaps you’d like it regardless?”

Allura seethes inwardly for a few seconds, before forcing herself to take a deep breath. There was no way she would be doing anything useful tumbling around the cabin. As much as she hated to admit it, she needed his help.

It didn’t stop her from shooting him a glare that could cut through reinforced steel.

“I’ll carry you to the medcot if you agree you’ll stay there.” He says.

_‘I don’t think so._’ She growls under her breath. 

“You can carry me to the transcender.” She retorts, “And I’ll see what I can do.”

Lotor sighs and shakes his head. “Fine.”

She wraps her arm around his neck, and he lifts her almost effortlessly. His jaw is set solid, his chest braces against her weight. He’s in pain, she realises. She hadn’t noticed any external injuries, apart from some dried blood caked to his hair, and he hid it with such skill that perhaps she might not have noticed otherwise. Lotor had lived like a prey animal, never showing weakness lest it get him killed by a predator.

The moment Allura’s feet touch the floor, she almost immediately topples again, and Lotor’s hand grips her wrist painfully to stop her from falling.

“Are you sure you’re up to this?”

His tone barely manages to hide his scepticism.

“Do you have any better ideas?” She snaps.

Allura closes her eyes to focus. She would have to dig deep to find the energy she needed. A small part of her rational mind told her she was being stupid, that she didn’t have the energy to complete the repairs, and that incapacitating herself in the process was hardly productive. But then again, Allura didn’t have time for rationality currently.

She presses a palm to the enormous reality transcender, bracing herself as her marks begin to glow. Blue energy flowed from her veins and into the comet stroma, rewiring and remoulding. It took everything she had not to pull her hand away. Everything in her was screaming at her to stop, that she would kill herself if she continued.

No, she thinks. She has to survive this. She has to.

“Allura…” Lotor warns, “Don’t be stupid.”

He knows it, somehow. He can feel it in his bones. She was giving every ounce of her life force away.

“That’s enough!” He growls, inwardly glad that she lets her hand fall before he has to pull her away.

“I need more energy…” she murmurs.

“Well you’re no good to us dead.”

She can feel his energy, blazing beneath his skin. Altean energy that she so desperately needed.

“You…” she gasps, “You have more.”

He had always had more innate Quintessence than average Altean. She had almost forgotten the feeling of the air buzzing, when she stood next to a powerful alchemist. Lotor’s was a little rawer, in need of refinement, but plentiful. Enough to be even more dangerous than he already was.

“If I could channel your energy, maybe it would be enough.”

“Allura…I…”

“Give me your hand.” She says, beckoning with the hand that leant on his shoulder, and he obliged her begrudgingly. 

She expected to feel that dark taint in his energy, like the entity, a little mark of what he was in his soul. But there was none. Just clean, pure energy, not entirely unlike her own.

She lets it flow through her into the ship. “It’s working!” She beams, “Keep going!”

Lotor grits his teeth as Allura asks more and more of him. He had more than enough to offer, he thought. Especially after all that exposure repairing the hull. It could do far more good through her hands than his. She moulded it to her will like clay, and finally more progress was being made than in all of his efforts combined. 

He forced himself to keep breathing as his reserves depleted, but he couldn’t ignore the deep onset of panic as she began to drain him of more than he could give her.

“Allura…” he utters as his body shakes, “Allura stop…”

She can’t. Too much is resting on this. Besides, it wouldn’t hurt him to suffer like his victims had.

She keeps going, even as his grip begins to falter. He doubles over, he can’t think. He can’t breathe.

“_Allura stop_!”

He shirks her from him and she hits the floor with a thud. Lotor groans as his knees buckle and he collapses to the floor, fading in and out of consciousness. 

Anger bubbles to the surface, and Allura slams her palm against the floor frighteningly. “_Quiznak!!!_” She shrieks. It wasn’t enough.

Nothing she did ever was.

A tear runs down her cheek, and she wipes her crumpled brow with the back of her sleeve. They were both going to be stuck in here forever, until they died, or succumbed to madness here.

It was all his fault.

Panic spikes in Allura’s veins. She can see Lotor’s pulse, weak and thready in his neck, the scent of him, peppered with adrenaline and blood as he gasped for air.

“No…” she gasped, realising what she had done, “No no no no no don’t die…”

Her elbows scraped the floor to get to him. If he died now, she hadn’t the energy to revive him. All his precious secrets would be lost forever.

“You can’t die!” She slaps at his cheeks and shakes him, “Please don’t die!”

“_I’m alive.”_ A muted grumble passed his lips between coughs and splutters, and Allura breathes a sigh of relief. “_Although not for your lack of trying_.”

He looks so weak and helpless, innocent almost, lying sprawled with limbs in all directions. If Allura had decided to kill him, now would be the perfect opportunity. He was completely incapable of fighting back.

She imagines pulling on his shoulder and pushing a knife into his throat. He would glare at her defiantly, refusing to yield even in frailty, until she cut into his skin.

Then he would lie to her.

His lies would rhyme pentameter until he persuaded her he was innocent in all of this. He would never willingly tell her what really became of her people.

Or she could throw him into the Rift and never look back.

Tears burn her eyes.

She could…

“What?” He asked, his brow furrowed in puzzlement as she grabs at his shoulders.

She blinks her tears away. She could strike him where he was most vulnerable.

If Allura couldn’t get them out of here, she would be damned if she couldn’t at least beat him at his own game.

“Allura?”

Wordlessly, Allura presses her lips to his in a searing kiss. It’s a terrible idea, she admits to herself. This wasn’t her, she wasn’t a liar, or a deceiver.

She wasn’t like him.

Perhaps a few ticks more thought might have discouraged her from the idea. She curses herself – it was too late to go back now.

He could tell her willingly. He would tell her.

He lies frozen beneath her touch, and Allura wonders if he has already sensed her deception. She softens her kiss, laying each one against him as if it might break him until he yields.

He was too weak, too exhausted, to fight her, and yet a little part of him didn’t want to. He couldn’t forget the way she first kissed him like this, it had shattered everything he thought he knew until he couldn’t even see himself in the pieces. Before his plans went awry, he had spent many a night considering strategically in his bed. Now, just like then, his conclusion was inevitable. He should kill her. But he wanted so badly to kiss her, just like this. 

He holds her gently, like she was the most precious thing in the universe and she sighs into him. She tries to shut out the flutterings in her stomach. Perhaps she can spend her feelings, each kiss a unit of currency that she can expect him to return to her in one way or another.

“I’m sorry…” she gasps, her hand smoothing at his cheek, “I’m so sorry, for everything…” she kisses him again when words fail her, “I was blinded by my own anger…”

“You almost killed me.” He stuttered, only to be silenced by her kisses.

“_I love you_…” she breathes, “_I love you I love you_…”

Lotor’s heart beats so hard in his chest he thinks it might burst. He dreamed of those words, the way she uttered them to him as she pulled his suit from him what felt like eons ago. He shouldn’t lose himself in them now, he should know better, but her arms hold him to her tightly and he melts into them. Isn’t this what he once wanted, more than anything in the world?

“Allura…” his hands on her arms part her from him and he sits up, “You don’t mean that.”

“I do!” She says, “I want to rebuild the universe with you! We can bring peace, I know we can!” 

His eyes were so deep and full of longing that Allura couldn’t bear to lose herself in them, preferring instead to curl up against his chest. If he realised that she was lying, he could kill her just as easily as she could kill him.

“Forgive me…”

His eyes squeeze shut in an agonising grimace at her words. Her love had warped him into something wholly unrecognisable. Every shred of intelligence he was born with told him that he couldn’t. It would be unfathomably stupid. Yet he knew he could do it in a heartbeat. Not to forgive her was an anguish he couldn’t bear, having preached to himself not one quintant ago that detachment was vital to his survival now

What a pathetic fool he had become.

“My love…” he whispers as he nuzzles at her ear, “It is I who should beg forgiveness from you…”

Allura wishes she could forgive him.

Still nursing her headache and now a distinct nausea against Lotor’s armour, she curses inwardly as his attention is captured by a tiny, unruly commotion at their feet.

She blinks and wrinkles her nose as one peers up towards her through dark beady eyes. “What the quiznak are those things?”

Lotor glances down, and sees her eyeing the little animated contraptions with suspicion. “I’ve really no idea.” He frowns, as one wheels itself full pelt into Lotor’s boot, “They’re fascinating, if infuriating.” 

The Quintessence must have infiltrated them somehow. They really were quite fascinating. Allura smiles, and kneels to extend a finger to them. “Hello little friends!” She says. The smaller two contrivances scarper, leaving only the largest and the boldest. Allura grins and giggles at it hesitantly creeps towards her, and then scowls as it bites down on her finger and rolls itself to hide behind the water bottle she had unceremoniously dropped.

“Ouch!” She exclaims, it had left ratchet marks in her skin! She bites back further outbursts as she shakes the pain away. “You little…!” 

A small frown tugs at Lotor’s lips. “And they escape from anything I trap them in.”

“Ugh,” she shakes her fingers, “the sooner we get out of here the better.”

Allura shivered, the sweat cooling on her body and she wished she had stayed in the cot. Wordlessly, Lotor gathers up the blanket she has tossed aside, and places it around her shoulders.

She could swear the little ‘things’ were snickering.


	6. Chapter 6

In all their time together, Allura had never known Lotor be so wonderfully soft. He grinned, and held her hands with genuine excitement as he told her of his progress. In the night cycle, he couldn’t bear to be parted from her. He nuzzled at her, craving the simple contact that she suspected he had never known. “We’ll rule the universe together.” He would tell her, murmured words against her neck as he was just about to fall asleep. “We will purge it of our enemies, and lay a pathway to a new peace.”

She let him of course, letting her mind drift away while he held her close under a plethora of scratchy insulative blankets.

Neither had much choice in the matter now. The temperature in the cabin had dropped another three euligrade that over the last 20 vargas. The cold was tolerable when one could move around to keep warm, but hypothermia was a very real risk if either of them fell asleep in this, even with the provisions they had on board. Sleep came when they lay close, tucked in to each other, curled up under several layers of fabric.

But Allura cannot sleep.

She had come so close to ruling the universe with him that the very thought of it terrified her. If it hadn’t been for Romelle, she would have married Lotor, become the Empress of the Galra, and been blissfully unaware that her husband was merrily committing war crimes against her own race.

Closing her eyelids did nothing to steal Allura from the mess she had thrown herself into. As much as they tried, it was never really dark in here. Condensation lingered on the windows, and the temperature inside the cockpit fell with every varga they remained trapped.

It was so cold that both of them slept fully-clothed, something Allura was eternally grateful for. She hadn’t slept a wink since being trapped in the Rift, her own bed on the Castle was little more than a fond distant dream by now.

She tried to offer him the same affection in return, stroking his hands and kissing his cheek, but something was, off.

It wasn’t the same.

Nothing was.

All the things that usually came naturally to Allura, without even thinking, were long lost to the Cosmos.

She realises that she is picking at her sleeve restlessly and forces herself to be still. 

“What is it?”

The hairs on the back of her neck prickle at the warmth of his breath. “It’s nothing.” She squeezes his hand deftly. Nothing she needed to share with him, anyway. 

* * *

Allura had been unamused to find that the little contraptions had woven a section of her hair into a tangled mess overnight, one that she would struggle to unpick.

She had woken that morning to find Lotor attempting to sneak up on the larger one of the three. His footsteps don’t make so much as a sound as he creeps up behind one with a water bottle that he has cut in half.

Stealthy though Lotor may have been, he wasn’t fast enough to catch the creature, and once again, he slams the bottle down over nothing as the tiny mech wheels itself away at speed to hide in her hair.

His frustrated brow furrows itself in defeat. “They seem to be learning.” He says, as he notices her stirring.

“That’s not possible.” She replies, her fingers flicking at it to get it out of her hair. “Ow ow ow!”

Lotor’s eyes glint in opportunity, and he drops to his knees at her side. “Keep still.” He says, his fingers racing to untangle it from her hair. “Don’t move.”

Allura bites her lip at the proximity – of course now there would be no such thing as a few moments to herself. She herself had seen to that and now she had to see it through.

His fingers tease gently at her hair, a little expression of concentration forming over his face and Allura can barely bring herself to look at him. A fight would be easier. A proper fight with all guns blazing, where they could have it out properly and move on with their lives. Allura had more faith in her combat skills than her acting skills. Perhaps that was the way forward. To drop this ridiculous façade and hold a knife to his throat like she had wanted to in the first place.

So much of this just didn’t sit right. Lotor was clever, possibly far more so than she realised. And he really had no reason to trust her after their battle. It was like all of his rage had been inexplicably erased.

This could only mean one of two things.

That he is playing her, just like she is trying to play him, and laughing at her inwardly every day at being infinitely better at it than she was.

Or, that she had not fully succeeded in healing his mind of the Quintessence overload.

Tinges of blissful madness leaked out when he whispered to her at night, promising her the universe in hushed lullabies. So why then, did Allura’s gut instinct tell her it was the former?

“They shouldn’t be capable of operant conditioning.” She says, grimacing uncomfortably as he tugs at a stubborn strand. The little contrivance, realising that it had been beaten by the expanse of Allura’s locks, gave up and stopped thrashing, lying on its side waiting for Lotor to rescue it.

“Neither should the Voltron Lions.” He says, his face lined with concentration. “Galra scientists and engineers tried for centa-phoebs to replicate King Alfor’s results, without success. The entire race was obsessed with ghosts in machines.”

“Yes, but they were my father’s lifetime alchemic achievements, these are pieces of shrapnel.” She retorts, “Without a closed circuit between them.”

He changes the subject. “How are you feeling today?”

What he means to say is ‘do you have enough energy to get us out of here today?’.

“Better.” She says, “But not strong enough.”

Lotor frowned, for once his thoughts written entirely on his face. Allura needed time, he could not argue with that. And yet time was something they did not have.

He sighed inwardly and reasoned with himself. What point was there in rushing her? She either had the energy or she did not.

There was one other way, that he hadn’t mentioned to her yet. He knew without a shadow of a doubt that she would hate it.

The moment Lotor had the creature free of her hair, it struggled desperately against his grip, but Lotor had no intention of letting it go again.

“Got it.” Lotor grimaces at it mauls at his hand for its freedom. “Do you think they will continue to –” he pauses while he looks for the right word. “Live when we leave the Rift?”

Finally freed, Allura scooped her hair into a bun. “I suppose they might for a short period of time.” She says. “I’ve never tried to animate objects before.”

Lotor frowned at the tiny creature enclosed within his vice-like grip, before locking it into one of the crew storage lockers. Inanimate objects having feelings, and souls. It was a concept altogether too foreign to him that perhaps Allura could understand.

“I remember when I was a child, there was an Elite Royal Alchemist by the name of Sinjina.” She says, eyes flashing fondly at the memory. “She was very brilliant, and very strict. If we were lucky, on special occasions, she would enchant paper clips into animal shapes to entertain us. They were so lifelike that you could pick them up and cuddle them. Before the summer solstice ball when I was six, she animated a small rabbit for me, to keep me quiet while my father was making important speeches. I played with it for vargas under the tables.”

Lotor cannot help but smile at the infectiousness of her own. That fondness and warmth, again so foreign a concept. He longed to know it better.

“I wouldn’t be parted from it, took it to bed with me. I cried when I woke up the next morning with a pile of paperclips in my arms.”

His mind turned to Kova again, and his inner heart ached. He could not waste time lamenting the fate of a childhood pet when their own lives were at stake. And yet, he would give anything to feel the cat’s soft fur beneath his fingertips again.

Allura’s laugh breaks his train of thought. “I begged for a real one for phoebs, my father said no.” She chuckled, “And just as well he did, or I might have suffocated the thing to death.”

He is listening, truly. His ears are pricked, his eyes wondrously wide, as if he is mesmerised by her little anecdote.

“I’m sorry.” She says. “This is hardly conducive to our escape.”

It isn’t, he knows. Yet he barely cares.

“No.” He says softly, “I long to hear stories from Altea.”

Allura’s stomach turns. It bothered her just how very ‘human’ Lotor was. She had thought him to be a heinous monster, without compassion or remorse, or any goals beyond those of his own greed. As hideous as his actions had been, she lamented, Lotor was not a monster. Lotor had a conscience, a very troubled, twisted, conscience morphed by trauma, but a conscience all the same. He knew right from wrong.

Allura couldn’t tell if that made him better or worse.

“I hope one day you might tell me many more.” 

His mind casts back to the juniberry fields, of them lying sodden in red juice, and the contentment of being in her embrace. Now that he had gotten used to the idea of giving himself to it, it didn’t frighten him anymore.

He wanted to be with her, he didn’t care how. 

“When we’re married,” she says, pecking him on the cheek, “I shall.”

Allura can taste the softness in his cheek as he smiles. It seemed all the worse, coming from her lips. He had been more than forthcoming about his intentions for her to rule at his side, as his equal. She would smile and kiss him and tell him how perfect that sounded.

But when she says it, it leaves an awful taste in her mouth.

She would rather die than marry him.

“Now,” she says, beckoning him to sit beside her, “I believe that I have steeped us in Altean nostalgia, I believe you owe me a story of your own.”

Allura had hoped that Lotor might open up of his own accord about the Colony. She couldn’t risk pushing him for it.

Lotor blinked as reality bit back at him. Of course she wanted to know about the fate of her people. And why shouldn’t she? He had always wanted to tell her.

A part of him hesitated. Not even Allura’s kind heart could forgive his actions, even if she was willing to try. There was still a lot of time to be spent alone with her, and he was sure there are multiple facets of his past that she would find intolerable. The loss of her affection, after all they had been through, was _unthinkable_. 

Perhaps he could give her just enough to sate her curiosity.

“I’m not sure it’s a riveting story, exactly.” He says, sitting beside her and drawing the blanket over his knees, “Perhaps you’d like to see for yourself.”

Lotor tapped at a few options on his vambrace holoscreen, and a video file roars into life.

Lotor, or whoever shot this, was standing on top of a cliff in a pink sunset, up to his thighs in yellow thickets of long, course grasses. Farm workers toil in the distance, against a backdrop of tiny whitewashed houses.

Her eyes widen. “Is this the Colony?” 

He nods. “This is a few centa-phoebs post-settlement.” He explains, “Tech was comparatively primitive then, until a few scientists developed a method for refining the ores of the mineral-laden soils.”

It was like the times of old, that she had learned about in history lessons as a child. No technology, no cities, just a very simple way of life on the land.

“How many lived there?”

“I have the official census numbers somewhere, but I think at this time the population was close to two thousand.” 

Allura’s eyes follow the video, it was as if she was there, shooting the footage herself. Pints of mulled ciders flowed as the working day drew to a close with the sunset. The farm workers wave cheerfully, beckoning her closer to share it with them. She tucks her hand around Lotor’s elbow and leans into his shoulder. Mulled cider at sunset, what a wonderful thought.

“This is from about five hundred deca-phoebs later.” He says, selecting another file and playing it for her. “Towns emerged around waterways originally, but the first true city didn’t really flourish until commerce became possible again. This is Heithiyn.”

Allura gasped. “It’s just like Alitheeyne.” She exclaims, waving a finger at the holoscreen, “Those are what we used to call transmirettian architecture, you see the way the bricklines transverse one another up the stories to prevent pressure points forming? And, and if you look here, this latticework was typical of the early Jacobite style, you could only see them if you went into the oldest parts of the city...” 

The old districts of Alitheeyne comprised brickwork in their building, rather than metals. They stood out like sore thumbs in the middle of the larger city they had spawned, but in a very beautiful way. Monuments, palaces and so many grand places had been built like that. She never thought she would see any of it again.

“And this one, look.” He says, “In 1049 AS, this research group developed a metal lighter and more durable than psyfarite; its very chemical composition could be altered with certain ultrasonic frequencies…”

The must have sat for vargas, lost in Lotor’s endless archives of the society he had created. Centa-phoeb by centa-phoeb, it looked less like a history textbook, and more like the Altea she loved. 

“That’s a statue of you!” She giggled, pointing at the screen, “You look very serious.”

“A terrible idea, I can assure you.” He lamented, “A horrendous waste of time and resources.”

“To them you were a saviour.” She says, squeezing his arm a little and trying to avoid using any sort of deific reference. Even though that’s what he had been in all effect. Worshipped like a god.

“That was their way of ensuring no one would forget what you had done for them.” 

His face softened slightly. “I wanted to save the race, yes.” He says, “I did not want eyesores of myself blemishing the landscape. If my father ever did find the place he wouldn’t have to look far to discover who was to blame.”

With Zarkon finally gone, Allura allowed herself to partake in the humour of it.

Lotor had been chuckling to himself so intensely, that he hadn’t noticed the next piece of clip starting as his head lulled against hers. Allura went quiet and still beneath him, and he knew something wasn’t right.

The next clip was of hospital beds, never-ending lines of them. Tents had been erected outside in order to accommodate the massive numbers of sick. It wasn’t the Colony she had spent the last few short vargas beaming over. The modern buildings were tall but derelict, the ground barren and hard, a faint hint of dust blew in the air. The people were gaunt and wretched, the joy long vacant from their eyes. It looked more like a war-zone, like one of the many beautiful planets the Galra had farmed to exhaustion and decimation.

It was only a torn tick before Lotor noticed, and shut it off without another word.

“What happened?”

Lotor frowned sadly, his eyes closed in preparation for her onslaught of questions. “It wasn’t to be.”

“Did someone find it? Lotor!” She tugged at his arm, but to no avail.

“I promise, Allura,” he says with a heavy heart, “that I will tell you everything one day. Just not yet, I can’t.”

He moves to get to his feet, until Allura’s fingers fold under his collar and pull him down to her. “Why?”

Because she wouldn’t love him if she knew.

Both of her thumbs traced over his ears and he shuddered. “Please, trust me.” He begs her, “Just a little longer.”

“How can I?” She says, letting him go with a shove. “When you won’t trust me?”

Allura rises with a dissatisfied pout and takes herself off towards the washroom, leaving him a conflicted mess on the floor. Allura was an intelligent woman, she would not follow him blindly. He would have to offer her one explanation or another, and soon.

“I think I know a way we can replenish your energy.” He says suddenly, halting her in her tracks away from him.

He knew this wasn’t an idea that she would be happy with.

“How?”

Any suggestions were welcome at this point. If it gets any colder in the cockpit they would freeze to death before they could get out of here.

“When I ventured outside to repair the leaks in the hull,” he began, “The Quintessence made me feel stronger.”

“No.”

“I didn’t feel the cold, or hunger, or thirst even.”

“You, of all people, should be able to appreciate why that’s a bad idea.”

“We don’t have a lot of other options.” He argues.

He may not be wrong, but her back was already turned.


	7. Chapter 7

Allura spent the next quintants pondering to herself – how exactly, to continue viewing that damning footage on Lotor’s vambrace.

He was a light sleeper, something she had noticed early on in her time trapped with him. She didn’t fancy her chances of stealing it while he slept. Nor did she wish to spend essential energy fighting him for it. So she held her cards close to her chest, for now.

He did not raise the subject of going outside again, although it was plain to see on his face that it was what he was thinking. She supposed his lack of hiding his usually closely guarded thoughts could only have been deliberate.

It had been oddly silent in the last few vargas, and Allura couldn’t quite pinpoint why. They worked quietly together, making what progress they could on the ship. She managed only a small section of wiring before she began to feel faint again. Marking the vargas with push-ups and stretches helped keep the cold at bay, and also to keep her thinking straight. Anything that could break up the monotony was a blessing as far as she was concerned, the lack of activity was beginning to make her stale. 

Lotor did not seem to suffer in the same way, and Allura found herself irritated by the appearance that she was less dedicated to their escape than he was. Not that there was anyone to care about the appearances of things.

Lotor peered up at the main station holoscreen, pausing every now and then to scribble notes and calculations into a small pocketbook. He must have been through two dozen hypotheses, before growling and crunching the paper into a ball and starting again. Lotor always spoke like a politician, poised and measured, yet he wrote like a medic; fast and scruffily and never seemed to finish one sentence before beginning another. A part of her deigned to wonder if that was how his brain really worked. And if a huge amount of time could have been saved by the Voltron Coalition simply by rummaging through Lotor’s rubbish bins.

After a few more doboshes of relative silence, Allura downs tools.

“_Why_ is it so quiet in here?”

A wicked smirk appears on Lotor’s face as his pen falls silent, and Allura’s hands brace themselves on her hips.

“Where are they?”

“Where are what?” He asks innocently, returning his attention to his mathematics.

“Those – things.”

“I have no idea what you mean.”

Coyness did not suit him.

“Come off it.” She says, “What did you do?”

Lotor swallows his smugness back for a moment. “Nothing drastic.”

“It sounds like you scrapped them for parts.”

“As useful as that might be, seeing as they have made off with all but two of our ratchet drivers;” he says, “I confess I did not.”

Allura watches with an eyebrow cocked as he crosses the cabin to open the door to one of the pilot lockers, revealing all three of the little contraptions, trapped and held up against a sheet of magnetised metal. They wriggled almost pitifully when they saw Lotor, but the force generated by the magnet was enough to render them completely immobile.

“The peace and quiet was surely worth the half-a-varga of effort.” He says.

“Lotor,” she begins. For a moment, Lotor is unsure whether she is about to chide him or congratulate him, “why in goodness’ sake didn’t we think of that before?” 

“It’s the most progress I’ve made since we’ve been here, at any rate.” He says, reseating himself and returning his attention to his notebook, flicking the end of the pen against the parchment impatiently.

“I didn’t have you for a brainstormer.” She says, trying and failing to make out the untidy Galra words over his shoulder.

“A what?”

“A – never mind.” She says, waving a hand in dismissal, “It’s a bizarre Earth word.”

A twinge of pain across her lower abdomen suddenly removes Allura’s attention from their conversation. She had ignored it for the last few vargas. It seemed so insignificant in light of their other issues and she was so deeply engrossed in the wiring of the main circuit board that she managed to forget about it. 

Another nagging twinge had the colour draining from her face, and almost losing the ration bar that she had eaten for lunch not half a varga ago.

“Excuse me.” She says, making a beeline for the bathroom.

* * *

“No…” she whines, peering into the seat of her underwear as if she hoped she could will the findings away, “No no no no no no NO!”

Her fist slams into the wall, causing the meagre roll of toilet paper to topple to the floor. This couldn’t be happening, not now.

She chides herself for her own stupidity - of course it would be now. She knew exactly when it would be, just like she knew every phoeb, she’d just – forgotten. Her own damned menstrual cycle. 

_Who forgets about that???_

Allura takes a used toilet roll cylinder and hurls it across the bathroom. 

“Allura?” Lotor’s concerned voice came from the cockpit, “Are you alright?”

“_No I am not alright_!” She eeks to herself in a register she was previously unaware she could hit.

Being stranded in the Quintessence Field whilst pretending to be in love with her worst enemy, she could just about cope with. This, she could not.

A tear trickles down her cheek, and Allura lets the sobs that follow make their way out of her. Better out than in, as Coran always said.

Coran.

_“Not to worry there little quiffle.” _He had told her with a grin,_ “Nothing to worry about at all.” _

It had been Coran, not her mother, or her father, who had bought her sanitaries when her first period appeared. He had ushered her from the engineering lesson in a whirlwind of babble back to her chambers, and told her there she was to stay. He hadn’t a clue, of course, in what to procure or how to instruct her. But he tried, just the same.

She hadn’t really understood then, just how terribly funny it had all been. Her mother hadn’t realised for almost four phoebs!

Too busy wiping tears from her cheeks, Allura chuckles into the back of her hand.

Those were happier times.

Toilet roll would have to do for now, although from past experience, she was going to have to find some other alternative, and fast.

* * *

“What _are _you looking for?”

After about ten doboshes undetected, Lotor notices her rifling through the storage lockers. Allura paused. Suppose she told him she was looking for tampons. She briefly considers asking him simply to see the shock on his face. 

“Um…” she blows a strand of hair out of her face, “Spare towels.”

As if that wasn’t the worst answer ever. Why in the cosmos would she need spare towels?

“There should be some somewhere.” He replies, “I have no idea how Acxa arranged the deeper storage supplies.”

“Acxa arranged all this?”

“In its entirety.”

Allura was sure there must have been an illuminated lightbulb above her head.

Acxa was... female. So were all of his generals.

There must be something in here somewhere.

“Allura, look at this.” He calls, and Allura reluctantly pulls her head from the storage compartment. She only had to hope that her toilet paper would hold for the time being.

“What is it?”

Now she was nearer to him, Lotor could smell the faintest scent of something on her, very similar to blood but not quite.

“I’ve managed to reconfigure the external sensors, and they’re picking up some interesting readings.” He says, “The density of the Quintessence we’re floating through, fluctuates within the spacetime continuum.”

“We already know those fluctuations attract large numbers of rift creatures which absorb that energy as quickly as it manifests.” She says, her voice fluttering him a warning. “And we don’t need to be anywhere near them when they do.”

“Unless they don’t.” He says, “Energy dense areas of the Rift, behave like black holes do in space. At the point of the event horizon, the Quintessence is so concentrated that items drawn in via the gravitational acceleration can cross into other realities.”

“And that is how transreality comets and rift creatures make their way into our reality.”

He nods, “If we can make contact with an event horizon, we might be able to escape the Rift entirely.”

“But we can’t guarantee which reality we will end up in.” She says through a frown, “If we don’t end up in our own, it would have untold consequences.”

“Each reality has its own quintessence fluctuation patterns.” He says, flicking through more screens of data, “Sincline has technology that can identify those patterns. That was how it was able to transverse between the Rift and our reality at will.”

Her fingers clasp at her chin quizzically. “And if we can mend it, and somehow steer ourselves into an event horizon before a mass of hungry rift creatures descends upon us, we can get out of the Rift?”

The scent was becoming unignorable to Lotor. It was rich and metallic, and even a little sickly. Scents like that usually didn’t require a warning label. Mentioning it to her, could not result in a positive outcome.

But Lotor’s eyes lock onto a seeping patch of red between her legs milli-ticks after, and his face drains of its colour.

“Allura…”

He couldn’t just stand here and not bring it to her attention.

“I suppose it isn’t the worst idea we’ve had.” She says, “It could take phoebs though.”

“Uh- Allura…”

“What?”

Lotor’s face was perturbed, as if something had stung him. And he was, staring at her. She follows his eyeline downwards, she sees the patch of blood that was soaking through her underwear and into her suit, and her jaw drops.

“No no no!” She groans.

Mortified, Allura’s hands dart to cover her crotch, but the damage has already been done.

Never in her life had she been so embarrassed.

“I can’t believe this…” she mumbles, sinking to the floor to cover herself with blankets. She should go to the washroom and try to salvage what she could out of this situation, but walking away from Lotor knowing he would be able to see _that_ was simply unimaginable.

Pain panged in her abdomen and she curls up into a ball on her side.

Suddenly being swallowed up by a black hole of quintessence didn’t seem so bad.

Lotor couldn’t tear his eyes away from her, the slightest purple tinge evident on his ears as she collapsed into a puddle on the floor. Never in his ten thousand deca-phoebs of life, had he ever seen anything quite like - _this._

“What are you staring at?” She snaps, launching an empty water bottle at him.

“I…” he spins around to avert his gaze, “I...”

Words came so naturally to Lotor, Allura didn’t think she had ever seen him speechless, until this very moment. It’s, almost funny.

“I’m bleeding, not indecent you moron!” She yells, arms pressing into her belly, “Are you not familiar with the concept of menstruation?”

“Familiar with the biological concept, yes…” he bites his lip, “But, it’s a little more potent, to see.”

“_Oh quiznak_…” she whispers to herself, burying her head underneath the blanket as well.

He supposed most species of females must. He lived for deca-phoebs on a cruiser in exile with four females, for Feyiv’s sake.

“I’ll, um, just a tick.” He says. He was sure there must have been a trail of smoke behind him as he retreated.

He returned doboshes later, carrying an armful of things. She hasn’t moved from where he left her, buried entirely under blankets and unmoving.

A muffled grumble comes from under the blanket.

“What do you want Lotor?”

“I come in peace.”

He passes her a box, and the moment she peeked inside, all of her prayers were answered.

“Ezor always - stole them, apparently. So Acxa had a hiding place.” 

Never in her life had Allura been so glad to see a box of tampons. She gave him a sneaky smile, and he knew he had placated her, if only temporarily.

She grabbed the rest of the items and inspected them, one by one. There was also a packet of wet wipes, a box of various pharmaceuticals, and a spare suit of Acxa’s.

“You may consider it a zirnek, if you wish.”

Allura’s rudimentary knowledge of the Galra language failed her yet again.

“A what?”

“An appeasement.” He says, “It is customary for Galra to gift their mates during bleeds. Such a gift is referred to as a ‘zirnek’. Although traditionally it would be pelts, or meat.”

“Oh.” She smiles weakly, “On Altea it was rather more customary for the men to ignore it.” She says, “Thank you.”

Lotor had encountered countless cultures in his life, but few existed without stigma surrounding female cycling. It wasn’t an issue he often had reason to ponder, yet when he did, there was a deep-seated unfairness. The Galra considered menstruation, pregnancy and childbirth to be a part of palen-bol, a special wisdom that females were highly respected for. It was one of the very few redeeming aspects of the otherwise violent Galra culture.

“That is unfortunate.” He frowns, “I apologise for my insensitivity, Allura. I did not expect…”

She waives his apology with a hand. “It’s no matter.” She says, “I hardly expected it either.” She holds a bottle up to the light. “Is this – stain lifter?”

“Ezor also ate a lot of crap.”

“What are these?” she asks, picking out boxes of meds, all in Galra. Not that she should be surprised.

If there is an anti-inflammatory in here, maybe the quintant could in fact, be saved.

Lotor picks them out one by one, an almost bored expression on his face. “Painkiller, painkiller, powerful painkiller.” His eyebrows rose as he finally realised why all of this had to be so well-hidden from Ezor, “Motion sickness tablets.” He chooses to ignore the anti-diarrhoeals for the time being, “Anti-spasmodics… You cannot possibly require all of these?”

_Motion sickness tablets. _

“A moderate pain reliever will be lovely, thank you.” She says, “And thank you again. For, giving up Acxa’s secret stash.”

“It was my pleasure.”

“Right.” She says, pulling the blanket around her and heading to the washroom with her new bundle of sundries. “Don’t look!”

Lotor shakes his head quietly with a small smirk on his face.

“I won’t.”


	8. Chapter 8

Allura marched out of the washroom twenty doboshes later in Acxa’s suit. The more she walked around in it, the more she realised that it was more insulative than her own, and thanked the Sages. But it was far too big for her in the arms and legs, leaving sloppy creases around her ankles and wrists, but it would have to do. It felt more than uncomfortable, jumping into Acxa’s skin, as it were. Allura hoped that, given the circumstances, she wouldn’t mind.

She could see over Lotor’s shoulder from this distance. He had managed to get the console working, and was studying graphs of fresh data, his unoccupied hand against his ribs, his ears flat to his head.

She hadn’t seen him so much as flinch, not even when he carried her, but Allura could see in the way his weight wavered with each step that he was in constant pain. His own energy had cured her vertigo and mended her bruised bones, but she had done nothing for his own broken ribs.

Suddenly, Allura recognises a glorious opportunity.

“You don’t need to suffer in silence, you know.” She says, placing a hand on his shoulder, “I’ve enough energy to heal your ribs now.”

Lotor’s composed mask was back and the screen minimised the moment he hears her, yet he still offers her an appreciative smile. “My ribs will heal themselves in time. Save your energy for what matters.”

“I don’t want you in any more pain.” She says with a kiss to the top of his head, “I’ll fetch you some of those pills. They’ve done wonders for me already.

“Do I have a choice in the matter?”

She grins slyly. “When we’re married I’ll expect you to always do as I command.”

There is a softness to him again as he concedes, one that tugs at her stomach as she wanders away to find some water. When Allura began this façade, she had thought that perhaps she wouldn’t be able to go through with it. She wasn’t a manipulative person, ever, or even a good liar. Allura always knew she would have to push herself to discover what she was truly capable of in this war, she had always sworn to herself that she would never lose her sense of self along the way, but that wasn’t what she felt like now. She felt smug.

When Lotor relaxed like this for her, it gave her the tiniest thrill, like just maybe she could have won this war on her whiles alone, if she had been a little more devious in the first place. It made things all the easier.

He would have to have half a bottle of water, if he intended to drink all of it. Allura makes quick work of the cap, before picking out the strong painkillers and the motion sickness tablets. She watched each tablet fizz, their wispy contents dissolving into nothing. By the time she had finished, she had compiled a cocktail potent enough to knock down Kaltenecker.

Sweat cooled the back of her neck as she passed him the bottle with a peck to his cheek, and her mind began to race. What if this was a terrible idea? He would surely taste it…

He took a small swig, and immediately pulled a face. “Void!” He forces himself to swallow the mixture, “I need to check the ship more carefully for contraband.”

“Mine tasted awful.” She adds quickly, “Maybe they’re out of date?”

Allura watches him take a long swig from the water bottle with bated breath, and hoped that this would work.

* * *

She could feel the drowsiness in his lips as she kissed him good night. His arms around her were heavier than usual, and Allura wouldn’t have long to wait before he fell into a sleep so deep that not even the fire alarm would rouse him.

Once, Allura had wanted him just like this. The almighty Emperor of the Galra, returning to her late in the night to sleep soundly in her arms. She scoffs internally - what a strange dream that all seemed now.

Allura draws her knees up in a bid to subdue the dull ache of her bleed. The painkillers had taken the edge off, but still. She had taken strikes to the abdomen that had hurt less. ‘_Patience…_’ she puffs into the blanket – it was no more or less than she was used to, she supposed. Nothing was going to make it go away. Besides, she had more important things to think about tonight.

The feeling of Lotor’s large hand shifting over her causes her to start.

_‘What in the name of…’_ Allura almost flung herself out of his grasp. Although his hand stops over her lower abdomen, instead of going where she thought it would. He draws slow, deliberate circles there, pressing just a little, right over the source of her pain.

“What are you doing?”

Perhaps she’d given him enough tablets to make him high.

He stops immediately. “Soothing your muscles.” He says, “I apologise, I won’t…”

“It’s alright.” She says, collecting herself, “I just thought-”

She thought he wanted to touch her a little more intimately.

Lotor understood her meaning. Although his current intentions were innocent enough, he couldn’t deny that he longed to touch her like that. Lying next to her every night had been easy at first, but now he found himself grateful for the fatigue that dulled the need that simmered inside him. It wasn’t until he had met her that he realised he could want sex so badly. He held her of course, but he wanted to touch her, taste her, give her pleasure.

Yet the thought of initiating sex clearly made her distinctly uncomfortable.

He removes his hand.

“I should have asked.” 

Allura shifts a little to catch his hand in hers. “It’s fine, really.” She says, “I just wasn’t expecting it, that’s all.”

Perhaps asking her would clear him of his guilt.

“Allura…”

“Yes?”

“You will tell me,” he asks, “if you’d prefer I didn’t touch you?”

Allura is sure she must be sweating through her suit.

“If I don’t want you to touch me, you will most certainly know about it.” She says assuredly.

They both lie despondent for a moment, until she murmurs delicately to him over her shoulder.

“Lotor, would you, would you keep going?”

He was more than exhausted by now, and half asleep, but his fingers still manage to find her belly, massaging gently, slowly, in turns and circles.

Allura yawns into her sleeve, his drowsiness contagious as he eases her pain away. After a few doboshes, she found that she didn’t mind it at all. In fact it was quite, nice.

Perhaps it would be nice if he touched her more intimately.

Allura felt her cheeks burn an embarrassing shade of red, and buries them in her curls as she wills the thought away. 

It was almost another varga before Lotor fell motionless beside her. He was asleep, she was sure, she could tell by his breathing, his hands stilled upon her stomach. The dull ache was back not long after. Perhaps if Allura could maintain this deception, she would ask him to do it again.

She gently teases his vambrace from his left arm, inspecting it for a moment. It would require his biometrics to function. Stretching her fingers to interlink through his over the back of his hand allows her to drive it wherever she wished. She marvels at the weight of him, her own slender hand miniscule by comparison. She taps his index finger to the vambrace to unlock it, and it offers her a holoscreen with an array of options, all in Galra, to her dismay. Then what exactly had she expected? 

He stirs beneath her and she freezes, shirking his hand from hers with a gasp. ‘_Quiznak!’_ She thinks, _‘Quiznak quiznak!” _She bit her lip as her nerve descends into her stomach. Perhaps this had all been a terrible idea. If he caught her…

If he caught her, it would all be over.

Allura lay deadly still, sure that he would be able to feel her heart racing under her ribs. He settles again, and she doesn’t dare move for another five doboshes. This is no good, she thinks. What if the brightness from the screen wakes him? Guiding his hand over her waist, she eases herself away, replacing herself with a pillow, and he rolls towards his front.

Breathing a sigh of relief and shuffling into a cross-legged position, Allura pulls her blanket around her head, and returns her attention to the vambrace, with Lotor once again bespelled in deep sleep.

He certainly wasn’t conservative about the amount of information he safe-guarded - the reems of data on here were gargantuan. Sets and algorithms dedicated to the refinement of quintessence, to the atmospheric composition of unexplored worlds, and so much more. She copied many of these data sets to her own vambrace, she would be able to go through them another time. He had made meticulous studies of the moon he had chosen for the Alteans, and the video logs were plentiful.

It doesn’t take too long for her to find the one that he shut down mere vargas before. He is walking through a medical tent, between rows of makeshift beds, each one laden with another emaciated person. Tubes in their throats and cannulas in their arms. Nurses rushed around with trays and bandaging materials, looking impossibly thin themselves. There are cots full of screaming children, their bellies bloated, their ribs visible to the outside world.

Allura extends thanks to the Sages that there is no sound on any of these videos. She doesn’t think she could bear to hear the cries. She can just about make out glimpses of words on their lips, asking for more drugs, more supplies. And food.

She stares, with bated breath. One by one on an automatic loop. After while they all looked the same to her. That beautiful place that he had shown her before, all of it was gone. It was like looking at a post-apocalyptic world in crisis, with tumbledown buildings, not an ounce of tech in sight, and more people in need of help than could be provided.

The next clip is of farmland, desecrated and barren. Nothing grows, not even the course indigenous fescues that prickled at boot soles from those first clips. Mulled cider at sundown seemed like an impossible dream, or a very precious memory.

Large plants churn smoke into the darkened sky. Lifeless mechs lie on factory lines, the cutting edge of Altean technology dying. When Allura looked a little closer, the mechs seemed to be being disassembled, not built, their pieces gutted and thrown into furnaces. In the streets, the dead and the dying lie intermingled, waiting nothing more than an anonymous shallow grave.

Allura sinks her face into her palms. Closing her eyes cannot make these images go away. She wanted to hit something, scream so loudly somewhere far from anywhere where she couldn’t be heard.

And the man responsible for all of it lay incapacitated mere feet away. 

Those Alteans… They might have had a better chance of surviving in the midst of the Galra Empire than in this place.

The reels kept coming, although Allura wasn’t sure she wanted to keep watching them. Nausea poked at her ribs and she forced herself to take a deep breath. What now? She couldn’t rely on Lotor’s promise of telling her when the time was right. The Colony had clearly descended into what Pidge would call a humanitarian crisis, but the logs gave no indication as to why. Romelle had never mentioned any of this decimation. Why would Lotor kill Alteans, when they were already dying? Perhaps he had decided to harvest what was valuable about them before they went extinct entirely.

Lost in her own thoughts, Allura realises the logs have moved on from footage of the Colony now. Reluctantly, she peeked through her fingers. Perhaps if it wasn’t too bad she could tolerate it long enough to switch it off.

This is footage of a different kind. The architecture is Galra, not Altean. The design consistent with the interior of a Galra battle cruiser, from what she could make out. The room appears to be a changing room, of sorts. It’s dark, almost impossible to see. One boy sits on the benches, alone, for a time, wrapping up his own cuts and bruises. White hair to his shoulders obscured his face, nothing remotely different to indicate that he was the Prince of the Galra.

Four much bigger Galra in similar uniforms surround him, casting huge shadows over Lotor’s face. He is an adolescent, at most, and pitifully tiny next to the others. Fear flashes in his eyes, Allura cannot quite make out what the largest is saying to him.

She jumps as he grabs Lotor by the throat and hoists him up against the wall while the others rip his clothes from his body. She tastes blood in her mouth – she must have bitten her tongue. It was like one of those vile horror movies that Pidge was always trying to get her to watch. She didn’t want to watch this, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away. They’re laughing at him, prodding him, beating him senseless.

And then they take it in turns to hold him down.

_While they… _

“What are you doing?”

Allura attempts to throw her body between him and the holoscreen so that he couldn’t see what she had stumbled upon, but it was already too late.

“Lotor…”

He has propped himself up on his elbows, but she can see them quivering a little under the blanket with every second he tries to support himself as he fights the drugs she had given him.

Throughout all their time together, Allura doesn’t think that she has ever seen true fear in Lotor’s eyes. This memory that he chose to immortalise in binary bypassed every piece of armour he possessed, and it haunted him.

A hint of disdain was evident in his induced drowsiness. The fear was gone as quickly as it had come. “How - how did you find that?”

Lotor groans. He couldn’t _concentrate_ – nothing would focus, his limbs weighed heavy like lead. Was he even awake? And if he was awake, it was all too possible that he was hallucinating, or intoxicated. He blinks again, and digs a claw into his arm to be sure. He barely feels it.

She must have given him far more than the recommended dosage of those pills.

His face fell to thunder. He supposed it shouldn’t shock him. Allura would do anything for her people. Including betraying his trust. The irony was almost poetic.

“I was looking for the later video logs of the Colony...” She says, but she can’t make the rest of her excuse pass her lips.

He should think not.

Silence loitered awkwardly between them, until Allura finally broke it.

“I’m sorry.” She says meekly, “I didn’t mean to view, _that_.”

Void how he hated her. He wanted to scream at her, take her by the shoulders and shake her. _Anything._ His stomach sank and a hateful nausea chilled him to his core.

_How dare she?_

He heaved himself to his feet and clumsily snatched his vambrace back from her, reattaching it to his arm before shutting the holoscreen off, but nothing could make Allura unsee what she had seen. That stomach-turning image will be burned into her brain for the rest of her life.

“Don’t apologise.” He says, collecting himself forcefully. “I love your fire, Allura.”

Her actions made him furious, incandescent even, it did him little good to show it. That would have to wait.

“I suppose you’ve found what you were looking for?” He asks her.

She folds her arms defensively across her chest. “If you had been honest with me it wouldn’t have been necessary.”

Her glare, it bore through him with a defiance so radiant that it scorched.

Ancients he _loved _it.

She could have stabbed him in his sleep, and he would probably admire her for it.

“They wanted to see what anatomy I had.” He explains without invitation, “Galra and Altean males are – quiet different.”

Still she glares, but she says nothing.

“Look again, if you want.”

He is taunting her now, flicking through images of other times and letting her absorb them one by one. He has collected some crackers, over the deca-phoebs. He vividly remembered each and every one.

Once, he had become rather partial to the idea of deepening those cuts instead of bandaging them.

He chuckles to himself.

They had paid. Dearly.

“Such demonstrations of conquest over non-Galra are positively encouraged.”

Allura’s face finally contorts, and it’s so very satisfying. Of course, she had little idea of the real world. It was tragic in so many ways.

“Am I making you uncomfortable?” He asks, his lips tilting up in a slight smirk as he leans towards her. “Don’t be disgusted on my behalf. It was a long time ago. All of them are dead now.”

The way he says the word ‘dead’, makes Allura wonder if he had anything to do with how they ended up that way.

And if she wouldn’t do the same had that ever happened to her.

“This is why the Galra must be purged from the universe.” He says suddenly, matter-of-factly, picking at his gloves as if he were talking about what to order for supper. “As swiftly as possible.”

Allura’s frown is palpable, and predictable.

“I used to think the same thing.” She admits to him quietly, a hand reaching to touch his shoulder, “But then I met Galra that were good and decent, who risked and gave their lives to end Zarkon’s reign. The ways of your people…”

“The ways of my people condone humiliation and suffering.” He interrupts her, “They always have, they always will. And I will be the one to end them once and for all.”

His fist clenched, his chin held elegantly high, as if he were addressing a nation, rather than just her. She purses her lips together in a tight line. It seemed disrespectful to think of Lotor as anything other than a steadfast warrior. All Allura could see now was the broken boy behind the cracks.

“Taking lives isn’t the answer, Lotor.” She says, “You have the ability to inspire! I’ve seen you speak. You can lead them into an era of new ways.”

But Allura can see her words bouncing off his armour. He couldn’t see a new world prevailing as long as the Galra were in it.

“The paladins said that Earth had a similar ruler once.” She says, remembering back to Shiro’s horror stories of the voracious orator with the awful moustache, “It took, generations, to incite change, to overcome the prejudice and the bitterness!”

“Perhaps then I shall reassure the some 354 billion citizens repressed under Galra occupation, not to mention the 200,000 Galra bastards born every deca-phoeb that they only have generations to wait before they can expect freedom and equality?” 

Her ears fell. “If you take lives, Lotor, you’ll be your father’s son forever. And I know that’s not what you want!”

He recoils like her words were stinging him, and turns his back. His eyes flash ferocity at her, somewhere from the depths of the twisted friendly familiarity with his own pain.

Pent up anger riles Allura on his behalf – how could anyone have stripped him naked and laughed and done such _evil _things to him? He was _beautiful_ to her, every bit of him.

“We _will _change the universe.” She assures him, before she can reason with herself to stop, “I promise, we will do it together, and we’ll do it our way.”

Her fingers curl around the crook of his arm, but his silence speaks volumes, his lips in a tight line. An insatiable need to soothe his pain bubbles up inside her, taunting her. Allura’s heart thuds in her chest. It will do no good, she knows. He isn’t hers, not really.

Then why does a part of her mean it so sincerely?

“Lotor,”

“What?”

Her hand rises of its own accord to stroke his cheek, and he recoils from that too. 

“I wouldn’t have you any other way, do you hear me?”

His eyes meet hers, and her breath hitches in her throat, her thumb brushing the skin where his Altean marks once glowed. She had loved him so much that it hurt. It still hurt.

Her lips are on his before she can really think. Just a short, sweet touch, and her heart breaks. Her hands find their way around his shoulders and into his hair. She pours all the love she had left into him.

Lotor is frozen lifeless. He doesn’t want her. He cannot trust her. Her fingers tighten their grip against his scalp, he hates her and he loves her, he_ needs _her.

His eyes flash dangerously, and Allura feels the wind knocked from her body as he lands on top of her and draws her wrists above her head. He is millimetres from her, his ferocious breath rushes over her lips, fangs bared, shuddering, furious, ready to bite. His razor-sharp glare through slitted eyes cuts her down to the bone.

Her soft scent hits his nostrils and Lotor is sure he really must have lost his mind.

His lips crush hers with an intensity that was rough and raw, his heavy body pinning her to the floor in a way that left her in no doubt as to just how powerful he could be. The taste of her, the _feel_ – is intoxicating. An initial streak of fear dissolved into sheer thrill. Allura felt ravished, and taken, and try as she might she couldn’t ignore the heat raging throughout her body.

_This man would be the death of her. _

The pain of her biting down on his lower lip sent a quiver of excitement down his spine. She was kissing to bruise him, leaning up into him to taste. Lotor seethed. She wasn’t perturbed at all; she was enjoying him.

He feels her calf brushing his thigh, and before he know it, she has hooked her leg under his knee and flipped their positions, locking his hips between her thighs, her hands pressing his forearms down as she takes his mouth again, and he groans.

Suddenly, she slows her pace, drawing out each kiss, slow and soft. Her lips wander to brush at his cheeks, his eyelids, his ears, his neck. He stilled beneath her, lying there perplexed as she uses her control to shower him with affection and it’s – it’s impossibly nice.

Her tongue tastes his again, their cheeks wet with tears, were they hers or his? She has no idea. She remembers the first time they came here, full of dreams and desires. Just then, there was nothing Allura wanted more than to take his suit off and have him right there…

When Allura finds the strength to pull away from him, his eyes are wild, with passion, fear, anger, or perhaps all three. She leans her forehead to his. 

“If I could take all your pain away, I would.” She murmurs between breaths.

She knows that one day, she shall.


	9. Chapter 9

Allura crawled into Lotor’s arms later that night.

She craved forgiveness, and Lotor finds himself unable to consider refusing her. That happiness, that was so very foreign, invaded his senses again, somewhere inbetween the quiet blue light and the silence. After thousands of deca-phoebs of sleeping alone, he found that he could get used to the comfort of another. She was so peaceful when she slept, so far away that none of what had transpired could mar her face. 

She seemed to like lying on top of him. That was the way they tended to find themselves during most of their short night cycles, sprawled and tangled together with her head on his chest or in the crook of his neck. It was also the most effective way to share their body heat. This time, her fingers had stroked his cheek and neck and brushed at his ear.

He couldn’t deny that he liked it, like everything cruel she did to him. 

His arms come around her and hold her until she stills, soft and silently, safely within them.

He knew, from the moment he tasted the bottle of water she gave him. He hadn’t needed to neck it back like he had, but he knew the effects would be short-lived, and at least he hadn’t slept through the entire thing. He had half looked forward to the challenge of working out what she had done when he woke, and half looked forward to the decent sleep itself. She was a far heavier sleeper than he was. If he had wanted, he could have infiltrated and reprogrammed her vambrace by now if he had wanted to.

He turned his mind away from the thought. Any information that was on Allura’s vambrace, he could manipulate her into sharing with him, if necessary. And currently, it had no use to him whatsoever. Such thoughts were commonplace in his head, but such ingenuity from Allura, was in no uncertain terms, unexpected.

The Allura he knew would never have betrayed her own heart and conscience to do something so underhanded. Then again, she wasn’t the Allura he knew anymore. She had changed. They both had.

Perhaps on top of him was a strategic place to have her as well as a pleasant one; he would certainly notice if she tried to sneak around again. She had healed his ribs, without asking, he would like to think it was because she felt guilty.

“What do you have planned Szaralmem?” He murmurs to her, curling and uncurling strands of her hair in his fingers in a way that lulls him further into slumber with every rhythmic turn. “Whatever will you do with me next?”

He knew that he would look forward to it.

Lotor could hear the creak of the straining hull outside, groaning as it whisked them further and further into infinity. The pitter-patter of water tinkling through the pipework was like music to his ears.

_Tell her_, he repeats to himself over and over. _Give her the honesty she deserves. _

His brain argued. No one else in the universe would ever love him like she had. She was much too precious to lose over the unfortunate facts of his past. It would be a terrible mistake.

But in his heavy heart, Lotor knew that Allura could never love someone she could not trust.

That unless he can be honest, he has already lost her. 

He can bury his face into her hair, slightly losing its gloss for lack of care, and it’s almost dark enough for peace.

* * *

Lotor wakes the next morning late, and with a headache to rival the storming of the Arquadh. He hadn’t felt so ill since Zethrid had convinced them all into partaking of a local Naarubu drinking tradition, the particulars of which he did not remember, along with the rest of the night. Although from Zethrid’s jovial demeanour the next morning, he assumed she must have been the victor.

Allura has risen early this time, and is sitting in the pilot’s seat by the time he attempted to roll himself from the blanket pile. It all came back to him then. His stomach seemed to abscond from his body as it rolled over and over in his mind over the basin of the tiny washroom.

Zethrid would have called him a poor sorry bastard.

She wouldn’t have been wrong.

Lotor bit his lip. This was it. He would tell Allura about the Colony.

“Allura…” He marches towards the pilot’s console, “Allura I need to speak with you…”

“I performed a risk analysis of the event horizon model.” Allura says, completely ignoring him, “I had to do it by hand, but I’ve triple-checked it, and it’s correct as far as I can tell.”

He binks as his own thoughts are cut in half. “What is it?”

“It won’t work, Lotor.” She says, “The model only works for structures much larger than this ship. We would be crushed by the gravitational force if we attempted it.”

He frowned. Her innate energy will restore itself in time, but time was something they did not have.

“We’ll think of something else.” He says.

“No.”

Allura shuts the screen down and sighs. “I’ve been thinking about it. About, going outside, I mean.”

Lotor straightens his back to look her in the eye. She is anxious, conflicted, and unhappy.

“You were right.” She says, picking at the material of her suit, “There is no other way.”

Once the seed had been planted, she had come around without too much intervention from him, fortunately. He was sure that if she couldn’t achieve it, then nobody could.

“Altean Alchemists were able to draw Quintessence from the world around them. Simply relying on innate Quintessence would never have been enough for many of their achievements.” He says, “Try to think of it like that.”

Allura supposed Lotor would be an expert on the matter.

“Isn’t that what your parents thought?” She asks him, “I can’t become like them Lotor.”

Uneasiness had been his companion these last movements, and now it stirred in his stomach not entirely unlike that Naarubu liquor. There was no upside to allowing Allura to become corrupted, she would likely quash the life out of him without much invitation. Nevertheless, the thought was, unpalatable.

He pauses, before he finds the presence of mind to force out - “You are different.”

Allura bit her lip. She had just as many weaknesses as any other mortal creature in the universe. How many more people thought that she must be a perfect example of Altean ingenuity?

Up here on her pedestal, behind her mask, they couldn’t see that she was bitter, and angry, and desperate.

Allura had spirit. She knew that if ever she had to fight Honerva again, she would do so with the heart of a lion. She would die trying if she had to.

But to assume that she was more powerful, or more skilled than Honerva, the greatest Alchemist of her time?

It would be arrogant.

And the Rift would use it to pick her to pieces.

“I’m not perfect, Lotor.”

Lotor’s sideways glance with raised brows does not improve her mood.

“That is more than blindingly obvious.” He says, straightening his spine at the retaliating glare she threw him, “What I mean to say is that no one is perfect, Allura. Expecting that from yourself is unreasonable.”

“That is what everyone else expects.”

She hangs her head in her hands. “I suppose your subjects must expect it of you, as well.”

Lotor frowns. He had never been the perfect prince to the Galra. Not as a child, as he repeatedly lost bouts against full-bloods, bouts he could never hope to win with his measly form alone. And not as an adult, a small half-blood with a stubborn partiality for fairhandedness. Lotor had fought, fang and claw for the tenuous respect of his people, based solely on how many full-bloods he could outwit in a fighting pit.

He hadn’t a prayer of being considered passable, let alone perfect.

But like all Galra Emperors, he would have to be victorious, or dead.

“They may, but I do not.” He says, “There is much to be said for the art of making oneself appear that way and you, Princess Allura, inner warts and all, are an outward vision of perfection.” 

“I don’t think the Rift will care how it looks.” She peers up at him through hollow eyes, “We have to be realistic about this. The Coalition can dress me up in ballgowns and noble words, but… I’m not immune to the effects of Quintessence poisoning. I could go out there, and not come back.” 

_This could kill her…_

What if it does?

Lotor refocussed his thoughts and swallows the lump in his throat. What he said now had to motivate her in the right way.

“You may not be perfect, but you’ve the courage, strength, and integrity of a great leader. And the heart and soul of a lion. You must believe in that Allura. That is what matters.”

But the sight of her lowering her head into her hands in an attempt to disguise a sob rendered him incapable of any more words.

“I don’t want to do this.”

The gentle touch of his hands caressing her arms beckons her to blink away the tears. He has fallen to one knee before her, and taken her hands in his, his thumbs stroke her palms as she weeps.

Lotor buries his face into her shoulder, if only to hide the fact that he is weeping too. “This is all my fault…” He whispers to her.

“It takes two to tango, though doesn’t it?”

Her arms encircle him and he holds her, in animated suspension over the edge of her seat. It was the only time that she ever felt warm anymore – being held by him. _You still love him_, came the little voice again, stabbing at her outermost thoughts and bleeding into her heart.

“I’ll be with you.” He tells her into the dregs of her bun. He would be with her until the last if it was the only thing he did.

“No you mustn’t.” She sniffs and he swears he can feel her grip on him tightening, “We can’t risk it taking hold of you again.” 

“The energy you gave me to restore my life Allura it –” He argues, “It protects me out there. I can stand it.”

“Lotor-”

“I’ll be with you.” He promises her, “I believe you have the strength to achieve this.”

“Thank you.” She offers him a weak smile with shining eyes. “Oh – I almost forgot, what was it you had to say to me?”

He pats a hand over hers. “It can wait until later.”

* * *

Allura inhales a deep breath, and tests her safety line once, twice, three times. Helmet comms are on. Airlock is ready for depressurisation.

This must be the craziest thing she has ever done.

Or the stupidest.

“The safety lines have an emergency recoil function.” He says, pointing to her harness, “Press the red button and it pulls both of us back inside the airlocks and locks the doors.”

“Okay.” She says, more to reassure herself than anything else. “How cold will it be?”

“Colder than the cockpit.” He replies, “It’s more of a burning sensation, but survivable in the short-term.”

“Right.”

If Lotor could tolerate the atmosphere for half a varga at a time, she hypothesised that ten doboshes shouldn’t be too harmful in theory. Her mind cast back to their battle and doubt builds in her stomach, it had taken him far less than that to descend into complete insanity.

“Perhaps you should stay here.” She says mindfully, “And pull me in in case something goes wrong.”

She’s nervous, he sees. A spark of something protective flutters up his spine, and he closes a hand over her quivering one.

“I said I would be with you, and I won’t be anywhere else.” He reassures her, “We’ll be fine.”

She tests her safety line again with a meek appreciative smile. “I hope you’re right.”

She lets her feet lift from the floor as the last of the airlock gravity fades away, and pushes off upwards.

The light is blinding at first. It reminded Allura of jumping into a freezing lake as a child. She held her breath, for one, two, three ticks, waiting for the rush past her ears and for their air to break around her.

There was no up, only the rushing of a water-l­ike substrate that was so fine that it ghosted through her and reminded her that there was no point in holding her breath here.

It was cold. So cold that it burned, almost painful, and she forces herself to take deep breaths. If Lotor could do this, there was no reason why she couldn’t. 

“Are you alright?” She calls. Lotor wasn’t far behind her, letting his body adjust to the lack of gravity.

He was fine. More than fine. The pain, and the cold, slipped away in significance, paling to the sheer thrill of raw power seeping in through the pores of his skin. 

Lotor loved how powerful he felt out here. What he would do for even the tiniest siphon on it. The Colony had been so close, he had been so frustratingly close to absolution. The Galra would finally know what it was to be persecuted.

He shuts down the niggling in his mind. Ethical, it was not. But Alteans would not sleep safely in their beds until it was done. Sendak was proof of that. And there would be many others.

Allura floats mere feet away from him, treading to keep herself upright. She has relaxed a little now, marks glowing gently beneath her helmet as she basks in the rolling waves. Stunning, he thinks. Power looked exquisite on her; he had always thought so.

“Are you?”

Her voice shakes in the mist. “I think so.”

A big grin envelops her face. If she closes her eyes, she can almost convince herself she is lying underneath the Altean sun. Little whispers filled her ears with promises, and Allura allows herself to take in the expanse of it.

“It’s beautiful!”

Lotor lets his apprehension slip away. It was beautiful, and she even more so.

She raises her arms out to her sides and kicking her legs in glee at the end of her safety line. “I feel so alive!”

It was like nothing she had ever seen, or felt. It gave her hope when there was none. It bathed her soul in warmth, it enveloped her and promised to never let her suffer again.

She had no idea why she had been so worried about this.

“It is. But we shouldn’t stay out here too long, just long enough for you to recharge.” He warns her.

He was never far from her, hanging back just a little so as not to spoil her experience. His own life force billowed around him. He smiles at her, and she wonders if it wouldn’t be so untoward to kiss him again when they returned to the ship. 

“How are you feeling?” He asks her concernedly.

“Hmmm… Wonderful…” She murmurs, leaning back a little more. Truth be told, Allura is beginning to feel utterly sated, a sweetish sort of ache settled, as if she has just been pleasured to her peak, and was now lying in a tranquil afterglow of satisfaction. Lotor’s eyes were following her, and she could not have cared less.

She closed her eyes and let herself float. Tiredness evaporated from her stiff muscles, her heart thudded in her chest, and she let herself simply be happy, staring into oblivion, with the scent of juniberries tickling her nose.

Lotor’s stomach falls as Allura starts to tug at the straps attaching her to the safety line.

“What are you doing?” He calls.

“I have to see more!” She calls back, wriggling out of her harness and letting it drift.

He only just manages to catch her hand before she floats out of his reach.

“It’s not safe!” He insists, trying to guide her arms back into the harness and failing miserably.

Her eyes are wide and childlike in complete and utter awe. “You said it would be safe out here, Lotor, and it is! Look!”

“Not like this.” He mutters, “It’s infiltrating your mind. Put your harness back on.”

He has to get her back into the ship, quickly.

“But I feel so free Lotor!” She whines, her hands fighting to free herself from him, and his heart breaks a little for her. “I’ve - never been free…”

Quintessence offered a person everything they could ever want, everything they longed for. For him, it had been power, to make changes the universe desperately needed. For her, it was being beholden to nothing, and no one. 

The pieces of his heart sank. “No, I suppose not.” 

Echoes of Allura’s fit of joyous giggles could be heard for light-years in the silence of the Rift, her arms thrown back without a care in the world.

“Come and explore it with me! There’s so much of this we never saw when we were here before, so much we could learn!”

“We’ll come back soon and collect more data.” He tells her, although he cannot pretend that the Rift isn’t calling to him as well, “When we have a functioning ship.”

“I don’t want to go back…”

“Allura!” Lotor’s grip on her wrist tightens as he pulls her back in towards him, “Snap out of it!” He snarls, “It promises you wonderful things but they are things that can never be and you can’t let it control you!”

“Going back puts me in a cage Lotor.” A tear runs down her cheek and her hands settle on his arms, “With no place, and no home. Please don’t make me go back to that.”

Her distraught face tears shreds into him. All this time he has known her, and she has never been anything less than perfection in the role she was born to. Never once had the fierce princess let on just how unhappy she was.

He steals himself – he couldn’t let her distract him. “You’ll be a queen in a glorious peacetime.” He says, “You’ll be safe and loved.”

“But I won’t be free…” She says, another flicker of sadness dancing over her gaze, “And neither will you…”

“You needn’t concern yourself with my fate.” He says, holding his breath, “It was entirely self-inflicted.”

Allura screwed her eyes shut – she had no family, no friends that wouldn’t leave her eventually, and the one man she loved in all the universe, she could never have, not under any civilised legal system. He would never be free again. Never be hers again. Not in any reality, anyway.

“Come with me!” She begs, “We can leave all that behind! This is where we are meant to be, you and I. You know it.”

Her fingers start to unbuckle his safety harness, and he catches them in his hands, her eyes can’t understand. 

“This is what I come from.” He utters, “I know it every day. It will destroy us if we stay.”

It’s taken hold of her, just like it took hold of him. He can see it reflected like a ghost in her glittering eyes as she removed her helmet and let her hair cascade down. It didn’t seem to want him anymore, his mind remained his own. It wanted her now.

_‘Well you can’t have her._’ His mind argues stubbornly.

“Come with me, please!” She begs him, “We can go back to Altea, Lotor, it’s what we’ve always dreamed about! Going home! Isn’t that what you want?”

“We can’t go home Allura!” He despairs, “We can build a new one but we can’t go home to Altea.”

“Don’t you see?” She peers into his eyes, her own glowing an ethereal blue, her hair wild and loose around her like they were both underwater. She sings, smiling elatedly and closing her eyes, “Can’t you see it now? Can’t you feel it?”

Lotor’s eyes widen as he realises what she means, and his hands tighten their grip on her arms.

“Allura…” He sobs, “We can’t.”

“You dreamed of it, remember?”

Images flash before his eyes of their beautiful embraces lying in the juniberry fields.

How could she possibly know that?

“We can be free. From all those cold lonely realities. Reality will never let us be, Lotor. I want my home, and I want _you_.”

“And I want that.” He says, “More than anything. But it can’t be!”

Longing struck Lotor hard. Reality held nothing for him. He would be put in prison, or sentenced to death. Allura would still pine for her home planet for centa-phoebs, trapped in an elongated life with no Altea in it.

Madness seemed, a mercy.

“You’re wrong, my love.” She tells him, her voice so very soothing, “Anything can be if we will it.”

Lotor gasps against an airless atmosphere as Allura pulls his helmet from his head. Quintessence kept his body alive, he had no need for oxygen anymore. She takes his hand in hers, cupping his cheek with the other, and Lotor feels his Altean markings come to life under her touch. He felt her power – it was immense, infinite, beyond anything he was capable of appreciating. She was a goddess.

What if he let her take him home?

He would be insane, or dead. But what did it matter? He would be with her, lying in the juniberry fields with the warm Altean sun on their faces for eternity.

Her lips press to his, and he can feel it warming him. He gathers her in his arms, filled with love and pleasure and happiness. Tears of bliss spilled from his eyes.

He wanted to go home. 

_No…_

He pulled back from her. He swore that he would bring her home, and not to some hallucination of Altea. He would give her a real Altea one day.

“Alright.” He shudders, raising his arms around her, “Alright. If it’s the only way. I said I’d be with you didn’t I?”

Allura smiles into their embrace, finally at peace in her own little world, and Lotor just about manages to press the emergency recoil switch on his belt. 


	10. Chapter 10

Lotor locks Allura into a vice-like grip as the safety line rewinds, pulling them back towards the airlock with frightening speed. She claws at him ferociously, screams and shouts, but he doesn’t let go of her.

They collide with the back-most wall of the airlock with a thud, the doors locking shut behind them, and they collapse to the ground as the gravity comes back on and the room repressurises itself with breathable air. She all but throws him from her, fists clenched in a rage as she tries to reopen the doors to no avail. Once in emergency lockdown, the main doors couldn’t be opened for at least a varga. It was a fail-safe of Acxa’s against piracy attempts.

“_No!!!_” She screams, fist pounding against the doors, “_No no no!!!_”

He practically falls backwards into the cockpit, barely able to free himself from his harness as she turns her attention to him again, She has slid to her knees, her face thundery with a wrath and a sadness he had never seen on her before.

“How could you do this?” She sobbed, “To me?”

“You make promises you cannot keep!” He growls, “I won’t let you commit suicide here!”

Allura clasped at the sides of her head- she couldn’t process this. Despite everything, on some level, she thought that some part of him might still love her. She was used to people telling her they loved her, when they had only known her for five doboshes, when they had only ever_ looked_ at her, like a pretty commodity they could win. Someone in the universe had to love her for who she was, and she continued every day, standing tall, in the hope that someone might, one day.

She shook her head. Mask back on, stand up again. Lotor didn’t love her, she could see that now. He was only using her, just like he always had.

“How dare you?” She shrieks, the super-charged amplitude of her voice causes the ship to vibrate, “You-” she reels, “I won’t let you do this to me again…”

Allura’s fist flies from nowhere, and Lotor is more than sure that if he hadn’t also been tripping on Quintessence, that the force would have broken his jaw.

“Why?” She screamed raising her fists to a guard position, “Why do you have to hurt me when I loved you?! _I loved you_!”

She lands a push kick to his abdomen, and Lotor feels himself flying backwards into Sincline console.

“_Am I nothing more than a commodity to you_??? _To get you where you want to be? Is that it?_”

“You are not yourself!!!” He roars, “Can’t you see? It’s corrupting you like it corrupted me!!!”

“Well I don’t love you anymore.” She says, smiling at the pain she can inflict on him, “How could I?”

She takes slow steps towards the console, where Lotor is fighting to peel himself from its controls.

Anger burns in his core. “_You loved me_?” He fumes, his eyes wild, claws unsheathed and his Galra blood hot for battle. “_You killed me_!”

“You would have killed me!” She spat.

“I would have given you everything and you threw me away!” He roared, “And for what? A silly little girl’s perception of a situation far beyond her understanding?”

“You lied to me!” Allura hits him again, this time landing on his guard. “You didn’t have to. You used me, just like you used all the Alteans you murdered for your own gain!”

This time he strikes her. He has knocked out larger full-bloods with a similar amount of force. He doesn’t regret it. For a moment, he wouldn’t have regretted it if her brains had splattered over the floor.

“You have no idea!” He continues, “The decisions I’ve had to make! Do you think I’ve wanted to make them? _We are at war!!!_” 

He dodges a kick, and parries her strikes, but she’s stronger, faster, and he takes another hit to his jaw and kneecap, before her hand is squeezing his neck.

There is almost pity in her eyes. “I think you wanted to be something you weren’t.”

He had fancied himself an Altean King, Allura was sure of it. Well she wouldn’t have it. He had no right to stand next to the likes of her father.

“And what would you have proposed, Princess?” He snarls, knocking her from her feet, “Asking my father nicely?” 

This time it is her hand in his hair that wrenches him backwards, that calm pity terrifying to him. “You could have asked me nicely.” She says.

Lotor saw red. His hand grabs her neck, strangling her, like the Rift had told him he should. How was he to reason with a monster? He had no choice but to play the monster instead.

He releases her neck, and drives the heel of his hand into her chin with enough force to throw her backwards.

That is where asking nicely gets you. 

_That_ was for Ven’Tar.

Allura, barely able to contain the rage inside her, rallies her power as she rises to her feet. She had missed it in so many ways, but nothing now could be more satisfying than pulverising him.

Her eyes glow, and Lotor realises that he is rooted to the spot, completely unable to raise his guard.

“Did they know, as they died?” She snarls, “What they were dying for?”

“Of course not!” He retaliates, “I made sure they knew nothing.”

“Of course you did.”

Her next strike collides with his gut and Lotor collapses to the floor, fighting the urge to vomit.

“I’m surprised you didn’t feel the duty to fuel this change with your own Quintessence, perhaps?”

Lotor swallowed the blood that he wanted to wretch. He knew he had excess Quintessence and he had wanted to give it, he simply hadn’t been able to willingly. He had tried once, in the pods. If he was willing to condemn people to this fate, why shouldn’t he? It had almost killed him, and without him, he realised, the Colony had no hope.

“I’m sorry.” He says, baring his fangs like a caged beast, “That it was necessary, Allura, I truly am, but it _was_, and nothing you do will ever make me regret what I’ve done.” 

She exhales angrily, her fists curled at her sides.

“It’s monstrosities like you that remind me what I’m fighting for in this war.” She says, entirely more relaxed now that he is unable to strike her, “You taught me the art of manipulation. I thought if you believed I still loved you, you would tell me what you did to my people.”

She grabs him by the neck, and lifts him high above her head with one arm alone, her eyes burning into his. “Now it doesn’t matter. I can torture it out of you.”

With a single fling of her arm, Lotor hurtles to the other side of the ship, the Quintessence in his body doing nothing for the sharp pain of his back hitting the wall.

“You’re stronger than this, Allura.” He rasps, “Remember what we went out there for.”

She is there again, picking him up by his collar and dangling him in the air.

“Fight it.” He tells her, her grip tightening around his airway, “Embrace it. I don’t care. Do what you want to me. Don’t let it control you.”

“So when you are powerful, you are doing it for the greater good? But when I am powerful I am possessed by it?” Allura growls, “_Arrogant._”

Her power blazed, striking straight through him like a solar flare. It hurt, by the holy land of Feyiv it hurt. Tears broke from his eyes and he screams, how loud he did not know. It was best to let pain out, to let it flow through you. She couldn’t do worse to him than the witch had, but she was trying.

She struck him again and again, until he couldn’t scream any more, could see, or hear. It blinded his vision white, and he started to believe that he would never come back.

_‘Let her kill me’_, he thinks. Then this can finally be over.

For a moment, he isn’t sure if he is breathing, if he still has limbs. She has stopped, finally letting him crumple to the floor.

Somewhere in the light, he could hear her sobbing.

“You tell me…” She cried, her face blotchy and red from tears, “Or I’ll kill you.”

Lotor croaks through dry lips and eyes swollen shut, “_You won’t kill me_.” He murmurs, “_If we were going to kill each other, we would have done so by now._”

Tears run down Allura’s cheeks, and she kicks him in the abdomen for good measure. What was she doing? Her skull is pounding again. He had made her so angry that she could barely remember.

She couldn’t even torture him properly.

She hadn’t meant for it to be like this. She had only meant to come and fetch him from the Rift, to return triumphant in battle, and be back with the other paladins and Coran on the Castle, Lotor back in the holding cells where he belonged, the war finally won.

That - that sounded like the perfect thing.

The Castle of Lions, where the paladins and Coran were waiting for her.

She shook her head, how could she have forgotten them? The dear dear friends that had pulled her from an eternity in cryostasis, kept her going for the last two deca-phoebs, given her hope for a better universe long before Lotor had come into her life.

And Coran, the father her own couldn’t be…

Allura spreads her palms to the floor. Focus, she thinks. Lotor wasn’t worth it, but they were.

_‘I will get home if it is the last thing I do.’_

Energy flows like water through every crevice of the ship, from the depths of her heart and soul. Wires reinsulate themselves and wind, boards and panels rebuild themselves, reshaping to replace the obliterated pieces needed. The error messages on the console holoscreens begin to flicker and disappear.

Allura maintains this frequency for seventeen doboshes. By which point, she has completed work on the transcender, mended the external frame in its entirety, and begun to restore power to the rest of the ship.

Finally, she sighs, and lets the flow cease.

“I can’t do anymore.” She says, falling to her elbows as if in some sort of prayer, “I need to preserve this energy now.”

She can hear Lotor groaning behind her, his arm nursing his ribs as he draws his knees up towards his chest. Cold air cuts at her lungs as she fights to maintain her breath.

“_Did… Did it work_?”

Allura rises onto her knees to see for herself. The cockpit bleeps happily around them, the multiple errors on the consoles were mostly gone, replacing the red glow with a distinctly healthy blue one. 

Sighing in joy, she launches herself upwards with a huge grin, only to find her legs buckling underneath her again.

“_Oh_…” she says, her head spinning uncontrollably as she falls back onto her side, the overhead lights glaring at her from dizzying heights above.


	11. Chapter 11

They sleep separately that night, cold be damned, all illusions of love and trust destroyed.

Allura has curled herself onto the medical cot, which was far more function than form, leaving Lotor a sprawled fuming mess on the mats. She is sure that she only slept as a result of relative exhaustion – it was so much colder without being able to share his body heat, but there was no way she could bring herself to crawl back over there. Not under any circumstances.

She isn’t sure how long she sleeps for, but when she wakes, she feels like death. And she wants to bury herself under the blanket and never come out again.

She pulls it up over her head and hopes that Lotor hadn’t noticed her waking. She knew she had to get the ship ready for a jump; she just, needed a few more doboshes to herself before she had to spend another quintant facing him.

She should never have let him convince her to go outside. She grimaces into her pillow – what had she been thinking? Nothing good could come of the Rift, and she had known it. She had let him pull at her heartstrings, and almost paid the price.

He had saved her, her tired overworked brain reminds her, he was the only reason she hadn’t floated off into the Rift with her silly little whims. _Stop it_, she tells it. All he ever does, time and time again, is prove to her his utter disrespect, in prolonging her ignorance in the fate of her people. She could never forgive him for that. 

She left him where he fell, unconcerned with the level of injury she had given him. She could hear his breathing all through the night cycle, rasping and irregular. Once or twice, she had heard him try to stand, and fail, determined to be silent through his pain. He would be cold, too. Once she might have pitied him. Now, she simply found it irritating. After a while, he had stopped moving, and she hadn’t given it any further thought.

Finally peeling herself from the cot, Allura peered into her sorry, blotchy reflection in the tiny washroom mirror and sighed. When the stress was bad, she used make-up to cover the zits and blemishes that marred her skin, but Acxa clearly hadn’t thought to pack anything of the sort, and now they were back with a vengeance.

It seemed there was no end of evil in the universe prepared to take advantage of her homesickness. She had tried to pilot the Castle into a supernova, for quiznak’s sake. And that was before she had ever met Lotor, or known that she even could transverse the rift between realities.

She had tried not to give the end of the war too much thought either. She had been fighting it for so long that peacetime seemed as distant a reality as the Rift itself.

“Get up.”

“Get. Up.” She hauls him by the collar, but his feet don’t follow her. The feeling of his weight slumping against her grip didn’t encourage her to scuff her own across the floor.

First a non-functional ship, and now a non-functional co-pilot.

With a flick of her wrist, Allura drops his collar and he falls like a lead brick, spluttering and gasping for air. She’s hurt him badly this time, and Allura cannot deny that a little piece of her feels, victorious.

“Fine, I’ll pilot the damned thing myself.”

Lotor winced, his cheek cold against metal. Pain stabbed at him, everywhere, his back, his neck, his limbs. His chest was so tight that he could barely breathe. There were breaks, he was certain. And possibly internal bleeds. His vision swam, his brain thought in irregular circles while trying to keep his limbs immobile. He contemplates asking Allura for painkillers, but she is about as likely to give them to him as she is to break out in song. He had been badly injured before, but even Lotor knew when he couldn’t cope with it alone. He needed medical help, and they couldn’t be further from it.

* * *

“Were you really that unhappy?”

The words come long into the frosty silence that neither had had the courage to break for several vargas now. Allura was attempting to reboot and trouble-shoot the ship’s systems using translation programmes from her vambrace, to sidestep her ignorance of his mother-tongue. Until a full diagnostics panel was acquired, all they could do was wait.

Lotor was lying on his back, staring emptily at the ceiling, having finally unwrapped himself from the foetal ball position she had left him in. Dark circles loop under his eyes, his breath condenses with each inhalation.

It was the one thing that racketed around in his head, while he waited for his body to stop hurting. How could a woman who wanted for nothing have a right to be unhappy about anything?

His mind swum in circles. He supposed that many Galra might once have said the same thing about him. But Lotor knew all too well that palaces and riches, were not a substitute for the things that he had really wanted.

Allura’s nose wrinkles as if she has smelled something particularly bad. “I beg your pardon?”

“When we disembarked, you said that you didn’t want to go back to reality.” He rasps, “Is that true?”

“I said I wasn’t free.” She quips, “I didn’t say I was unhappy.”

“I know exactly what you said.”

Allura stares into the screen – the words didn’t make any more sense now than they did twenty doboshes ago. It was a never-ending soup of gobbledygook, and her brain begged for rest. And if she was unhappy, what difference would it make? She was sure that once the war was over, she would be as happy as she could be. For now, she would have to settle for less.

“I am as happy as I need to be, thank you.” She scowls.

He ponders. “And yet, truth be told, the universe doesn’t require us to be very happy at all, does it?”

“I said a lot of things I didn’t mean, as I might remind you did you, when you got us stuck in this shitscapade.” She says blandly, “Quintessence does terrible things to people, myself included. I fail to see why it should be any concern of yours.”

No, he supposed it wouldn’t be, but he still can’t stop himself from prodding at her.

“Because you begged me to follow you into oblivion!” He says, “Some part of you must feel that way.”

“Some parts of me feel like eating caffera for breakfast, I don’t intend to implement it into my daily routine.”

“All that time we worked together, I never caught on.” He trails, his eyes starting to follow the patterns of cracks in the ceiling. Some of them looked like dancing figures, throwing themselves wildly around a raging blue fire in the tradition of the Pobrazni Galra tribes that populated the coastal regions of Daibazaal. Others, looked like faces. He had been staring up at these cracks for vargas now, and still each time he looked he saw another face, some happy, some sad, some wicked and devious. Some even seem to change the more he stared, until they started to unnerve him.

“But there was darkness in you, I could tell that.” He continues aimlessly, “As much as there is in me. It drew me to you, I considered that maybe you were fighting similar battles to me.”

Her fingers fall still on the console. She hasn’t the energy to scream at him anymore, all of her anger settles out into a simmering irritation. “I’m, nothing, like you.”

Allura does not know what possible benefit could come from his pointless drivel, so she decides to ignore him from now on. If he isn’t going to help pilot, he could lie there until she had run the diagnostics.

“Weren’t we both alone?”

_For the love of the Sages… _

Her pen rattles to the floor, along with her sense of humour.

“It must have made me all the easier to manipulate, I suspect.”

“At first.” He says quietly, unaware of quite how much he was offending her by now, “At first. Then I thought -I didn’t know what I thought...” 

“Lotor, will you _stop_ babbling on?”

Something catches her attention, out of the corner of her eye. She hadn’t worried too much that he wouldn’t stay put, he hadn’t managed to move himself much since she decked him there. The cabin is still freezing, liveable, but only just. And Lotor is lying flat on his back, splayed out like a limp ragdoll, his hand fanning his flushed face as if he were sunning himself in the tropics.

Allura launches herself from the seat, like a wary parent about to discipline a misbehaving child, and yanks her right glove off. “Are you…?”

She closes her palm over his forehead and he flinches, looking up at her with dazed eyes when she doesn’t hit him. His skin is blazing hot, and disgustingly clammy. “Sick.” She says definitively, “Of course you’re sick. Why wouldn’t you be?”

Perhaps she shouldn’t have left him unattended and freezing for the entire night cycle. She had no idea what damage she had actually done in their fight – she only knew he was in far too much pain to stand.

“Well that certainly explains why you’re spouting nonsense.” She murmurs to herself, “Come on.”

She let him lean on her this time, as she attempts to drag him to his feet. His face contorts, and he falls to his knees.

“Fine. Stay there. I’ll bring things to you.”

She drops his arm to go and fetch the mats and blankets, but she can hear Lotor whimpering behind her as he tries so desperately to rise.

She shoots a discerning glare his way. “You’ll only hurt yourself more if you keep trying.”

“Palen-Bol, Princess.” He heaves, “Pain is in the mind. _Ah_-”

“Stay, where you are, or I’ll cuff you into the medcot.”

She hopes that the little amused dance in his brow is a figment of her imagination. 

She brought this upon herself, Allura thought as she gathered things together. This is her fault, and hers alone. She wonders if she should attempt to heal him again, but this was far worse than just a few cracked ribs, the way he was reacting suggested systemic inflammation and bodies were so much more delicate and complex than machines. She could do more harm than good if she tried something that was far beyond the limits of her medical knowledge.

She spreads the mats for him, and rolls him onto them slowly. “Holy Feyiv I need to piss.” He groans.

Of course he does.

“Here.” She passes him an empty water bottle, “Make use of this.”

Allura promptly turns her back as his hands attempt to reach the zipper of his suit, but it soon becomes obvious that this is beyond his capabilities too.

Wordlessly, she removes the armour from his upper body and tugs the zipper down for him. Dark blue and black bruises greet her eyes in the dim light. They cover his back and shoulder blades; along with older, much older scars, linear, and cutting into his flesh. She hadn’t ever seen him from this side. These weren’t battle scars. They were all that remained of a world of hurt in an abusive childhood long past. 

Allura tries to ignore her stomach turning in her belly, and turns her back to allow him to push the bottle down into one of the suit legs.

The relief is evident on his face. He fills one bottle, then another, and only then is he content to lie back under the blankets. Allura pinches them with her thumb and finger as she empties them into the lavatory and flushes.

When she returns, Lotor’s eyes are closed, the blanket drawn up to his chin. It loathes her to disturb him now that he has finally put a sock in it.

“Come here.” She says, gently pulling the blanket from his grasp, “I need to make a better assessment of your injuries.”

“What does it matter?” He murmurs childishly, “You gave them to me.”

“You deserved them.” She replies, plying the rest of his armour from his body until nothing but his suit remained, “Now lie still and tell me if anything I do hurts.”

He lies back irritatedly, while she feels all around his skull and jaw, his lymph nodes are swollen, his one eye more dilated than the other. He says nothing as she works, gently poking at each notch in his back, listening for the hitches in his breath when something hurt, as the awkward silence settles. The less time she has to spend away from the console, the better.

Then, out of nowhere, his weak voice piped up as his fevered eyes stare into hers. “Have you ever watched young children starve to death?”

Her hands fall still on his arm for a moment as her brain catches up. Fortunately she is learning not to take what he says in this pyrexic state too seriously. “What sort of a question is that?” She asks, continuing to palpate down his left arm.

He peers up past her. “They are so hungry that their bodies start to digest themselves. Until there is nothing left but skin and bone, and screams to be fed.”

It’s almost a sing-song sort of voice, like a child reciting a nursery rhyme, and he continues when she fails to dignify him with a reply.

“It can take months. In the end they are too weak to scream, they just lie there, waiting for death.” 

Don’t waver, she thinks to herself, she isn’t prepared to let his ramblings intimidate her now. She hardly needs lecturing on the hardships the war had brought upon the universe.

“It was all my fault…” A tear runs down his cheek and he starts to hyperventilate, Allura feels his hand shaking as she works towards his wrist and she starts to worry how erratic he would become in this delirium, “People were dying and I… I was killing people by doing nothing and I had to do something Allura! I remembered something, I’d seen my mother do and I… I…”

“You what?” She pushes him with a glint in her eye, pressing his wrist a little too hard, “Lotor _what_ did you do?”

Allura’s heart hammers in her chest. Finally he would give her closure, even if it did take a forty-degree fever to stimulate it…

He presses his lips together, pales, and turns away from her to vomit violently over the other side of the mats.

“Never mind.” She winces as the stench reaches her nose, “We’ll - talk about this when you’ve recovered.”

He had pain responses in several vertebrae, several ribs, his right femur and left tibia, both wrists. Nothing was displaced, or open, he could move his extremities. He couldn’t be losing a large amount of blood internally, or he would have passed out by now. In the absence of a proper medical pod, she concluded that he would have to rest, and heal in time, and perhaps with the odd bit of assistance from her, when she could spare the energy.

She buries her head in her hands as she contemplates what that would mean for her. She wasn’t a nurse by nature, and had little inclination to give the care he was going to need to recover. He would need helping to eat, and drink, and to get to the washroom, and she simply couldn’t fly this thing without him.

“_Sages preserve me_…” she mutters, “_What have I done…?”_

* * *

It takes quintants for him to settle, and movements for him to improve.

Six movements, four quintants, seven vargas and eighteen doboshes, to be exact.

He sleeps for much of it, oblivious to her pottering around him, prepping the ship and running simulations on its systems. Oblivious that that was all she could do.

She marked each quintant with a line carved into the metal doors. She would go mad if she had to spend much longer in the silence, between the dribs and drabs of her own chill-interrupted sleep. She limps him to the washroom every so often, looping his arm around her shoulder and taking as much of his weight as she could. His bruises only worsened, and after the first two movements of little progress, she finally relented, and passed him a little inkling of quintessence, and some pills, to soothe his pain. He remained delirious in fever, his lack of a verbal filter infuriating at times, and thoroughly entertaining at others.

One evening, he described in detail the way Zethrid had pulled him, raging drunk, from a pile of xuru dancers, in some dodgy district of Brut. His drink must have been spiked, he recalled with almost fondness, and he hadn’t been able to tell his left from his right.

“I was about to clamber onto a stage with six of them, a flower crown on my head and paint on my face. She carried me away over her shoulder!” He remembers, “I was too paralytic to walk, I woke up face-down in a puddle of my own vomit with no idea what happened. Ezor reminded me of course, with some fairly damning footage which I had to make her delete…”

Allura allowed herself a small smile at that one. This feverish, delirious and gibbering version of the Galra Emperor was not one she had seen before, but one that she found hopelessly entertaining. She had decided that she would take nothing he said seriously, until his fever came down again. Until then, she would say any nonsensical thing she pleased to him.

“You shouldn’t be telling me these things.” She says, knowing he wouldn’t be able to remember a jot of what he’d said to her in the morning, “I might get the wrong impression.”

“Oh, they teased me for phoebs.” He says, picking at a piece of ration bar, “And phoebs.”

“Yes,” she giggles, “so would I!”

“I’ve never lived it down.”

Allura sighed out of her laughter, picking at her own lacklustre meal. “I’d love to go and get absolutely wasted.” She laments, “Preferably in the shadiest bar, in the worst district, on some planet where nobody knew who I was.”

She lets herself grin at the notion. Her, drinking and dancing. Whatever next.

“Well,” he says, “I don’t recommend.”

Allura breaks eye-contact, for fear that he would see the twinkle extinguish in hers. She would have to take herself. Perhaps she would, one day.

“Do you know what I miss most right now?” She asks, changing the subject entirely.

“What?”

“A roaring fireplace.” She says, “With orange flames and crackles and belting heat.”

His cheeks are still flushed. “What an odd concept.” He says, “What is wrong with proper central heating systems?”

“Here.” She uncrosses her legs to place her vambrace on the floor between them, and brings up a holovid of a hearth, full of the orange flames she so desired. She rubbed her arms as if she could feel its warmth. “Isn’t it glorious?”

His eyes follow the dancing flames, and his ears twitch when the fire suddenly cracks. “It looks like a health hazard.” He says, “Then again, Galra tribes warmed themselves like this for generations, in beds of furs while fires roared.”

“Oh that sounds marvellous!” She shivers, “What I wouldn’t give for a fire and a warm bed? Oh, and a bath!”

“Now that does sound good.” 

“When we get back,” she says, “I want no one to know I’m there for twenty vargas. To eat, bathe, and sleep in front of a warm hearth, and not have to deal with anything or anyone. Just for twenty vargas.”

“Hmmm…” He purrs, leaning back with closed eyes, “I can think of only one thing that would make it even better…”

Allura’s eyes widen as she catches his meaning, before her lips curl into a knowing smile. “Yes, I suppose that would be nice too.”

A lover surely would be nice, but Allura quickly wills away the flicker in her mind’s eye of _them_ tangled in her sheets, moaning and writhing.

“I’m curious, which paladin would you choose to satisfy your needs, Princess?” He teases.

“Oh quiznacking hell!” She laughs, “Can you imagine? Keith would frown throughout, Hunk - just no, and Lance – Lance would probably write me a thank you letter.”

Lotor braced his ribs uncomfortably as he tried to hold in the fits of laughter that were about to burst from him.

“No I would never get one of them to do it.” She says matter-of-factly, “I think I might have to rely on something a little more dependable, a little more _discreet_.”

Now it’s Lotor’s turn to roll his eyes, and Allura leans back in fits of laughter too. “You’re obsolete you men; do you know that?”

* * *

“Are you ever going to tell me,” Allura whispers to him one evening, while he slumbers silently away, “what your master plan was?”

Five movements in, their food supplies were running ever lower. His ranting became less and less odd, and far less frequent, replaced with colder, far more resentful conversation. Allura rather preferred him feverish. At least she found it harder to be angry with him that way. She wondered if that was really him, stripped back through his layers of steel and cunning, and then wondered if it had been rather fun to know the uncensored Lotor, even if it had taken a forty-degree fever to bring him out.

She has started fashioning herself a blade out of spare metal, for lack of anything more interesting to do. She scrapes at it, sharpening the edge into a curved blade with each determined stroke. If he couldn’t hear her, what did it matter if she ranted at him for a little bit?

We are going to die out here.” She says drily, “And don’t say that it will ‘lower morale’, because I don’t really see how our morale could possibly get any lower than it already is.”

His voice, low and sleepy, rumbles over the space between them. “It won’t bring any of them back, Allura.” He murmurs through closed eyes, “And it certainly won’t give you the closure you desire.”

Allura almost jumps out of her skin. “Quiznak…” She says, hand over her thudding heart, “I thought you were asleep, you startled me.”

His eyes open, and he gives her a wry smile. “I know I betrayed myself, a few times.” He says, “Truth be told, I made the decision not to tell you, because the thought of losing you was unthinkable.” He winces again as he struggles to pull himself up onto his elbows, “Now that I have, I suppose that’s academic.”

The words stabbed at Lotor’s chest like ice-picks. Allura had already proven that she couldn’t imagine circumstances that motivated him. This would make her angry, at best, and murderous at worst.

But he owed it to her now, more than ever.

“It might interest you to know that it wasn’t my first, or preferred strategy.” He says uncomfortably.

Her eyes follow his like the brightest of stars. “I’m listening.”


	12. Chapter 12

“I admit,” he says calmly, “when our paths crossed, I saw a - an opportunity.”

Allura’s breath sticks in her chest. No longer would Lotor dangle her on a string like a piece of bait. No longer could he barter his freedom, or even his comfort.

It was easy to feel a little less angry at him when he was recovering from his injuries, but now that he was almost healed, and, well, lucid, he was sharper around the edges, and altogether more disagreeable.

The words are cold. She had been an ‘opportunity’, or a million possibilities, none of which involved any benefit to herself at all. He took and he took, with impunity.

It didn’t matter. She had waited too long, gone to the ends of existence for this knowledge. It ate at her like an excruciating hunger, until she couldn’t bear it anymore.

“You said that people were hungry and dying.”

Lotor is hesitating, fidgeting, uncomfortable. He should be, she thinks, but not so much so that he cannot recite it in its entirety. She needed this.

“Lotor,” She begins exhaustedly, “I said that I would listen, and I will. I shall reserve the right to judge, only after I have listened in full.”

Lotor takes deep breath after deep breath, yet he still cannot feel any oxygen in his lungs. Lies and manipulation were all that he knew, and yet, somehow, he sat there in his indisposed condition, like a chastised cadet, trying to bury the niggling inclination that her words were genuine. Or perhaps, genuinely meant, might be a safer description.

He’d blabbed while he was ill, and now he couldn’t take it back.

“The Colony prospered for the first few hundred deca-phoebs.” He says, “It became a thriving civilisation that I am immensely proud of. But.” He sighs, “Like so many of the universe’s inhabitable planets, a steady supply of fuel is required. I anticipated this, of course. The Colony’s ore possessed a plentiful amount of minable Quintessence, and I was confident that we could mine it sustainably. Studies and trials conducted on other planets, proved successful.”

“Your father exiled you for that.”

“Yes.” He remembers back to it without fondness, “And the timing could not have been better. I needed to be below the radar, what better way for him to put me there himself?”

His mind flickers to Ven’Tar, and her people, and his heart breaks all over again. She had not been able to forgive him either, in the end. She wouldn’t even look at him, not even from her knees. Little had he known that it would be the last time he would ever look at her...

His foolishness had ended her very race, in a matter of doboshes.

Lotor swallows. It was_ his_ fault. His alone.

How could he allow that to happen to his mother’s people? Or indeed to any?

He smooths his face over effortlessly, like none of that emotion had ever been. “The Alteans I placed in charge of overseeing the mining, possessed such innocent vigour for advancement that they became overzealous in their targets. I should have been suspicious at the population boom and the rapid progression of technology I had never even dreamed of. I was encouraging it, I channelled efforts and resources into building weaponised mechs, I wanted them to be able to defend themselves if the Empire ever found them.” His expression fell, “But I was so overwhelmed by the Colony’s success that I was blinded to the bigger picture.”

Allura’s eyes bid him silently to continue, and he dares not refuse them.

“By the time I had realised, the Colony’s natural reserve of Quintessence had been almost entirely depleted. We continued to mine what we could, but the essential fuel needed for the most basic things became a scarcity. First the technology failed. We shut most of it down to reroute and ration what fuel was left, but that didn’t last long. No technology, no agriculture, no trade, no amenities. There was a shortage of food, and even water in some places. The economy failed. Almost overnight.”

There is almost a glint of something sad in his eyes, as if he could see the devastation before him even now.

“I implemented harsh rationing, and sustainable mining. My generals managed to steal some supplies here and there from Galra ships, but we had to be careful. We couldn’t afford to draw that kind of attention to ourselves.” He frowns through the despair. “Nothing we did was enough. Black markets evolved within the Colony. We tried to shut them down, but whenever one was extinguished, another would simply rise in its place. The rich could pay, the poor could not.” He pauses, “We realised that if we tilled the land by hand, we could only feed about one nineth of the total population.” 

Allura swallows the large lump that has been forming in her throat as the reflections of Lotor’s holovid reflect in her eyes. “People starved.”

“Thousands.”

Allura feels sick to her stomach. All this had happened while she slept quietly, light-years away. Suddenly she feels a pang of guilt. If she had been there, she might have been able to stop this.

He answers her next question before she can ask it. “We searched for other places that could be kept undiscovered by the Galra, and found none.” He says, “I did not even trust my generals with those coordinates. I only ever took sentries there. It seems that was prudent.”

“Thousands…” she murmurs, clasping her hands in her lap. “Thousands of people died and you...”

She couldn’t get the words out. That he had somehow let this happen. 

“I watched.” He says quietly, his eyes now staring into the wall behind her, “For deca-phoebs. I gave some useless speeches that couldn’t feed anyone. Then I couldn’t watch anymore.”

Lotor closes his eyes, but it can’t shut out the judgement of Altea’s Princess. He forces his emotions back down and locked them away, like he always did. It always left his heart dark and empty.

“I was killing people simply by doing nothing.” He mutters, “None of my strategies worked. I,” He gasps for air, “I went down in to the tenements one day and I saw families euthanise their children because it was a preferable end to starvation. Women doing the most horrific things to abort the babies they couldn’t bear to bring into the world.” He says, “I remembered something I had seen - my mother - do before I was exiled.” 

Allura sits silently on her mat, her knees drawn to her chest, her head resting on them, turned away from him. It was the first time he had ever referred to Haggar as his mother. “You isolated the individuals with the most internal Quintessence and told them they were going to found another colony.”

Silence. He didn’t need to explain what had happened next.

“They fell asleep in warm beds, dreaming of a better future. I made sure they never woke up.”

For ticks, doboshes even, Allura seemed to have forgotten how to breathe. Or exist. Everything spun in circles that her brain couldn’t understand. All that life, just extinguished, like it was nothing. All those people that would never go home, and their families that would never know what happened to them. 

“I had, hoped that it was all some big misunderstanding.” She says from behind a curtain of her own hair, “That you could tell me that it was misconstrued, or a terrible accident of sorts.” She sighs, and Lotor watches as the light dies in her eyes. “But now I see that Romelle was right all along.”

“Yes.” He says, tight-lipped and ashamed. “It was a, regrettable last resort. A crown of moral impunity means very little when one’s subjects are all dead, Princess.”

He hangs his head, his heart thudding in his chest. He had lost her long ago, yet somehow it felt like he had lost her all over again.

Just like he lost everybody he loved.

“Then I found you.” He continues, desperate to scrabble for some kind of excuse, “I had to persuade you to help me find Oriande so I would never have to do it again!”

Hot tears spill down her cheeks, and just like that, her resolve was defeated. They were just words, lives that were ended deca-phoebs ago, why did she have to cry so badly? She had never been one for the waterworks. Her father had told her once, that whenever Allura cried, Altea fell.

What was left of it to fall.

“I can’t be okay with this, Lotor.” She sobs, “I just can’t.”

“I know.” He says, “I understand.”

“No you don’t.” She chokes, “That’s just it, you cannot appreciate the scale of what you’ve done Lotor! The fact that you can sit here and talk about this with a straight face tells me that. Life or death, they deserved a chance, a choice and you took that from them!” 

“Offer them a choice? Between what? Certain death and certain death? Allura that would be cruel!”

“It would be difficult, inconvenient even Lotor, but not cruel.”

“What would you have me do?” He growls defensively, “What would you have done? Because I assure you Princess, sit idle in authority for too long, and the hunger-stricken start to wonder why you should eat and they don’t.”

Night after night Allura lay, dreaming of those nightmare-ish holovids. She would have been able to bolster the Colony’s Quintessence with her own, with relative ease. A frown spread over her face. While Lotor had Quintessence, almost as much as her, deep down she knew that he could no more perform an alchemic feat of that magnitude than squeeze water from stones.

“When I met you, once I saw what you could accomplish, I knew you were their salvation Allura.”

“And yet you hid them from me.”

“Yes. I meant what I said when I told you that you could never make me regret what I’ve done.” He says, “But it’s not quite true. If there is one thing I truly regret; it is not being honest with you. I, had intended to propose marriage.” He admits sheepishly, “You must know that I loved you, Allura. I feared your reaction and I faltered. I was so very selfish to keep you from them; I see that now.”

Allura let herself cry. _Had he imagined that she might react differently if she was married to him?_ She would have been truly trapped then, completely unable to get away from him, the illusion that he loved her lying shattered at her feet.

Every tear that fell from her cheek was another knife in his chest. His love brought nothing but pain to others. How Lotor longed for the quintants when she was manipulating him, with kisses and sweet nothings in his ear. At least then he could pretend.

“Have you anything more to confess?”

“No, Princess.” 

Her lip tremors uncontrollably. “I, um.” She blinks tears away, “I need some time, to think.”

* * *

A deep, steady trickling sound fills the cabin. At first, Lotor thinks that he must be imagining it. Being stranded did funny things to the mind, he could well be starting to hear things. 

He sees a cloud of steam rising from beneath the washroom door ticks later, and happily concluded that his mind hadn't given out yet. Allura must have fixed the hot water systems during his bed-rest, and seemed to be indulging in a shower. She had been desperate to lock him out, he could see it in her face, and this was all she could do to achieve that goal, given the circumstances. The ship’s water system, when fully functional, was more than capable of recycling and all of the water they used. While they would at some point soon run out of food, it was impossible for them to run out of water, at least.

He had come to enjoy the few doboshes that Allura spent in the washroom each day, as those were the only precious doboshes that he could have his own company. And each one was worth more to him than all the riches of the Empire combined.

Lotor delighted in the sound of running water. As a child, and ever since, actually, he would lean his cheek against the cool bathtub, his fingers testing the temperature, and goosebumps rising on his finer hybrid skin as the temperature rose. The glorious heat of the bath would soothe his bruises, and cleanse the welts in his back. Although it would sting at first, when he was very young, Dayak could occasionally be persuaded to apply a balm to numb the pain a little, at least. When he was young enough to believe that somehow, he had deserved his punishments, he had wondered why Dayak’s usually solid exterior strained when first she saw it.

“_Palen-Bol_.” She would say firmly, looking away as if to mask disgust, “_Pain is in the mind_. _You will cope better next time._”

The warm water was glorious though. He shivered at the very thought of it.

Come to think of it, Allura had been a very long time in the washroom now, and he was going to need it himself shortly. He tosses and turns uncomfortably, his eyelids aching as if someone was trying to shine a torchlight through them.

“What is she…”

His hand falls despondently by his side. “-doing?”

Lotor fell completely and utterly speechless where he sat. Blindingly, brilliantly bright before him, stood the silhouette of a grand lion, with a streak of familiarity in the depth of its growl and the swing of its tail. It saunters in its gait, as if to mock him somehow, padding ever closer. Lotor did not flinch, or falter. He stared it down, stubbornly.

“What do _you_ want?”

The lion remained silent, its large blank eyes glowering into his. As Lotor stared back, into liquid oblivion, he knew. He’d always known exactly what the lion wanted.

He simply hadn’t been prepared to give it.

“I think we’ve already established that I’ve nothing for you.” He snarls, “Kindly rain your predispositions elsewhere.”

The lion snorts into Lotor’s face, as if to say it disapproved, its breath somewhat unpleasant on his skin, before peering towards the washroom longingly.

“If you’re here for the Princess, you’ll have to wait, I’m afraid.” He tells it in an irritated tone.

_What the quiznak was she doing in there?_

The lion growled again, and the ill-tempered curiosity inside Lotor grew unignorable.

Getting gingerly to his feet, he listens at the washroom door, rapping his knuckles against the door when he hears nothing but the trickle of water.

“Princess?” He calls, “Will you be much longer?”

Lotor’s brow creases when she doesn’t answer, and he knocks harder.

“Princess?” 

She has locked it from the inside, and she made absolutely no attempt to deter him from entry. A sickly metallic odour wafts in the dregs of steam, and the lion’s courage urges him silently on. Something wasn’t right.

Testing the lock again and finding it steadfast, Lotor loses patience and kicks it down, to be greeted by a thick cloud of steam fogging his vision. Her suit lies folded neatly on the floor, and a dismantled razor blade lies bloody in the sink…

“Allura!” Lotor pants, throwing the doors to the tiny circular shower back. She lies unconscious, collapsed in a pool of red that gushed from slashes in her wrists and her legs, staining her paling skin and hair, and circling away in the drain.

Lotor grabs frantically for a towel and heaves her lifeless body out of the stream of water.

“Allura…” He grasps at her arms and slaps his fingers against her cheek, “Allura can you hear me? Allura!”

Pressing his ear to her chest, he can just about hear a heartbeat, and the tiniest of breaths escapes her lips. His hands grab at her arms and slip, trying to press closed the deep cuts she had made, but he realised the more he tried to press some closed, all it did was encourage others further up her arms to gape and bleed all the more. She has done the same to her thighs and the backs of her knees.

“_No_…”

His brain kick-started through the fog. He had to stop the blood loss. There is a first aid kit in the cupboard. Lotor throws its contents onto the floor. He applies four artery clips to the largest bleeds. He tapes the lesser cuts, then he starts ripping at the towel, tearing it into strips and pulling them tight around her limbs with the clips in place. He sprints to the cabin and retrieves all the of the insulative blankets to warm her in. His hand fumbles with the tap, testing the water until it ran hot. Picking at a box of latex gloves from the first aid kit, Lotor fills each glove with hot water and ties it like a balloon, and then pokes them down the blanket, wherever he could fit them, to bolster her body temperature.

He would have to place an emergency IV cannula, in order to restore her circulating blood volume. Lotor’s hands shook as he removed the kit from the first aid box. In the military academy they had made it plain that in the battlefield, medical help was usually scarce, and cadets would have to learn how to resuscitate their fellow soldiers themselves. He had only ever had to do this twice before. Once on Acxa, when she sustained internal bleeding on a mission he had sent her on, and once on another cadet shortly before his departure from the academy. Neither in circumstances quite like this.

He ties a tourniquet around her upper arm, and realises with horror that this is just making her wrist cuts bleed more. Wiping her skin with surgical spirit, his jittering fingers pull the cannula from its plastic cap, only to dig it painfully into the heel of his own hand.

“Damn it…” He curses violently, “_Damn it damn it damn it_!!!”

His stomach turns, and the wasted cannula crash-lands into the sink. ‘_Pull yourself together_,’ he scalds himself, shakily pulling another cannula out of the pack and forcing himself to draw breath. She would die if he didn’t do this properly. Padding at the protruding vein with a gloved finger and wiping her skin with spirit, Lotor eases the bevelled end through her skin and into the blood vessel. Blood immediately comes back through the cannula, and he sighs, relieved in the knowledge that placement has been successful. Securing it with tape, Lotor continues to plough into the first aid bag to find the next thing he needed. Blood products didn’t keep on ships, the nearest thing he would have would be a colloid infusion.

The fluid bag is cold too – Lotor knows that be giving her this she will get even colder, but he lacks much in the way of choice now. He flushes the giving set and connects it to the cannula, hooking the bag over the shower door, and trying to steady his own breathing as his fingers monitor her pulse. Colloids alone wouldn’t be enough to save her life. They were an emergency resort to temporarily increase circulating volume until the patient could be admitted to a hospital bay. For all of Lotor’s ambitions, the ship was never intended to ever be so far away from one.

“Come on…” He whispers to her, lifting her back into his lap and rubbing at her body to generate more heat, “You can’t go out like this, come on…”

He drew him to her, feeling the chill as the blood soaked through the blankets, through his suit and onto his skin. She was so cold, so near to death, an escape that mere doboshes ago, Lotor could scarcely have imagined she wanted.

How could he have been so blissfully oblivious? His mind flits back to the fateful day they ventured outside, he recalled how lonely she said she felt, how pushed and pulled and lost, and he curls over her in shame. 

“I won’t let you do this.” He says, tucking her head into hers, “I won’t let you die… Please…”

Until now, Lotor had completely failed to notice that the white lion still remained, watching his every move with its usual blankness, just watching.

“_Why won’t you help her_???” Lotor roars at the lion, but it does nothing but look on from afar, “_She gave her life for you!!!_”

He takes her limp hand in his and interlocks his fingers with hers, like they had so many times before. He willed something to happen. Anything. If he had a shred of worthiness left from Oriande, if he had anything Altean in him at all.

“Show me!” He begs the lion, “Or- or take me instead!” His eyes rage defiantly as her breath fades, “I die, she goes home? That’s how this story ends, isn’t it?” 

It peers over at them curiously, but makes no move whatsoever to save Allura’s life. Lotor shudders, his face falling vehemently at its rejection. He clings to her desperately, willing her to live any way she can. She needed to go home, even if it was without him.

“_I’ll give you mine_.” He sobs, tears splashing onto her cheeks, “_I’ll give you my life_.”

Lotor feels the lion’s contented purr rumble in his soul, his eyes burn white, and he remembers no more.


	13. Chapter 13

Lotor’s consciousness is returned to him as if he were a puppet on a string, being fished out of depths too murky and yanked into a light too bright to fathom, on an undiscovered spectrum his eyes could not reach to. His lungs fill with the freshest air, and he lets himself inhale it greedily.

The scent of juniberries taints the breeze, amongst other pleasant scents. Pots swing gently from creaking verandas, climbing herbs wind up trellises for further than he can see. Birdsong chatters in the distance, but otherwise it is wonderfully silent. It’s a garden, he realises, a beautiful wilderness enough to lose oneself in. He is standing in a shallow pond of grey stone, not even deep enough to come up to his ankles. It would ripple and wave if he so much as shivered, so Lotor stands, stock still, if only to enjoy its serenity a little longer.

There was no more pain, or worry, or regret. His marks tingle gently on his cheeks. Lotor smiles in peace. Perhaps this was what he was always meant to do. He had finally been able to put his sorry life to good use, after all.

A single ripple touches his foot, and he realises that he is not alone.

A tall woman stands up to her bare ankles in the water too, the hem of her simple linen smock trailing damp beneath her layers of armour. although the crinkling at her eyes indicating some considerable experience of the universe, she is timeless. Her long white hair falls braided over her shoulders from a simple diadem over her brow, her eyes were jewels of jade against burgundy markings and weathered caramel skin. She carries a spear, entirely too like the one that had almost collided with his head, in Oriande.

Anticipating the Sage’s reaction this time, Lotor kneels, hanging his head low and praying that she didn’t see fit to cut it off. Palms outstretched, he kneels forward in the pool, the beauty of the ripples bringing tears to his eyes. He bows down low, so that his forehead touches the surface, and shakes in the cool depths.

_“I lay down my life.” _

But as much as he waits, the blow never comes.

Fear takes hold like a rooting weed, winding around his chest and cutting his breath short. ‘_Please let it be done quickly’, _he begs silently. 

But her fingers tilt his chin upwards to look at her, her eyes piercing his like daggers, before chuckling in wicked mirth.

“_Oh come now, there is no need for that_!” She says, her voice low and grand even in relative amusement. Her light grasps draws him up to his full height, and he can do nothing but stare. He knew her. He was sure of it.

“_My boy_,” she smiles in relief, “_I am so very, very delighted to meet you_.”

“Meet me?” Lotor stutters. She glares at him, summing him up from the inside out. Only Dayak ever had the ability to make him feel so transparent.

“_I have waited a long time to meet you Lotor. I am Halethea_.” She introduces herself, “_I do hope to see my daughter one day, too. But you were both always so very contrary_.”

Lotor feels himself brim with questions, and yet cannot even so much as utter one of them. Halethea nods to quieten him, already seeming to know what his most pertinent question would be.

“_She will live_.” She tells him, “_Your love saved her life, as hers did yours. You make quite the valiant pair_.”

“I’m, not sure we…” He swallows, “That is, I don’t think…”

Lotor could hardly deny that what he felt when Allura lay dying in his arms had been the love that he thought he had quashed. It had been like madness had set in, and that he no longer thought lucidly, except to remove her from harm’s way. It ached unbearably, but he could not allow it to surface. After learning what he had done to her people, Lotor had no doubt that Allura could not love him back. Now it hardly mattered. 

The Sage scrutinises him with a cocked eyebrow and a shrewd pinch of doubt, and he promptly stoppers the babble.

“I want nothing from her, or you.” He mumbles, “Only for her to live happily.”

“_Oh?_” Halethea prods, “_Are you quite sure that’s what you want?” _

Lotor’s heart jerked. All of that time he had wasted of hatred, and what had it all been for? Allura would decide her own fate, on which his own selfish whims bore no relevance now.

He swallows. “What I want doesn’t matter anymore.”

The old Sage smiles at him, a wise old glint in her eye, like she is content with his responses. _“You’ve been so brave, Lotor.” _She says, “_I so looked forward to seeing you in Oriande, but you weren’t ready then_.” She grins, “_You are now_. _And I’m so proud_.” 

“Ready, for what?”

She draws deft patterns in the water, distorting their reflections with the tip of her staff into ancient glyphs, that breathe with the breeze and Lotor’s cheeks glow in response. He watches in awe as they come to life around him, snaking themselves around him like bright blue iridescent fireworks, before firing up towards a never-ending sky.

Ten thousand deca-phoebs, he had spent in an ignorant slumber.

Now he was awake. And more _alive _than he had ever been.

“But I’m not worthy.” He protests, resisting the energy that rose to meet him, “I cannot undo the things that I’ve done.”

“_You lost your way_.” She says, “_My daughter lost her way. That does not mean that it cannot be found again_.”

“I don’t know that I can.” He says meekly, “Truly, I have been malicious and self-serving, and I know it’s still in me.”

“_We are all facets of right and wrong, it is in our very nature. We must learn from them to rise above._” She says, “_You are brilliant, and resourceful, and you will find your way again. Remember_, _this is in your blood too_.”

Lotor choked on words he couldn’t form. He could barely recognise his reflection in the pool. His eyes were aglow with something far beyond his understanding, and he can do nothing but stand and stare, terrified that if he closed them he would be lost to the infinity he saw there.

He tries to avoid what he really wishes to say. That he is Galra, half brute by blood and by nature, and unworthy of any such accolades.

Halethea stands at his side to inspect the reflection that has him riveted. “_Do not be ashamed of your Galra blood, child. It makes you who you are_.” Her elbow digs into his ribs playfully with a tweak of a grin, “_And you turned out just fine._”

Her brow creases as she appraises it, and then him, and then it again, apparently finding a new fault with a sigh.

“_My word, if you aren’t the spitting image of your grandfather_.” She remarks in a sinking, criticising tone, before meandering off down the length of the pool, “_How unfortunate_.”

This knocks him out of his stupor. “You, knew my grandfather?”

“_Hm_?” She peers over her shoulder, “_Oh I should think so dear, I was married to him for seven hundred deca-phoebs. He tried my patience, as well_.”

“You – are you my…”

“_Oh he was a confounded fool_.” She recalls, patting Lotor on the shoulder, “_You may be quite the likeness, but thank the Gods you haven’t his brain._”

Lotor had never been able to trace his Altean family. He had tried, once when a need for belonging hit him hard in his youth. Honerva had been an enigma of mystery, who seemed to have destroyed every last trace of where she came from, concerned only with where she was going. Suddenly he is bewildered - he didn’t even know the Altean word for ‘grandmother’…

Halethea presses a kiss to his forehead. “_Go on now my dear, you’ve someone waiting for you.” _She says, _“I hope not to be seeing you for many deca-phoebs more._”

“Wait-”

Without warning, she shoves him, and he is plummeting uncontrollably through clouds of grey.

* * *

Ringing.

Allura head swam. It should be over by now.

She was so very warm. Perhaps it was over, and now she was wherever, or whatever came next. She smiled to herself. It was glorious, like sun and fire on her skin, and she was safe in the knowledge that she was free at last.

“_Allura_…”

That voice, like soft baritone velvet. She had heard it in her nightmares, and in her wildest dreams. It is pulling her back, louder and louder, until she surfaces from the depths of her peace, and into bright artificial light. 

Her throat spasms against coughs and splutters, but she is too confused to understand. She can’t see, or hear. As soon as she is able to feel her limbs tingle, she starts to flail, but her limbs are being held down, and then she starts to panic.

“Steady…” A large gloved hand strokes her forehead, “Don’t fret.”

Lotor is cradling her in his arms, having wrapped her in all the blankets they had. His hand cups her cheek, his Quintessence flows from him plentifully and easily, it seeps into her veins, and it won’t let her go. His energy is different. It is as potent as it ever was, but now it wove itself to his will. Her eyes flicker, to settle on his face. His marks glow brightly, his lips pant gently in fatigue.

“_Lotor_…”

He holds her tightly, wiping strands of bloody hair from her face with reassuring words.

“Oh Allura…” his heart swells. Her wounds were gone, she was alive, so beautifully wonderfully alive, “I’m so glad you’re alright.”

He wanted so badly to kiss her.

No, he chided himself, she wouldn’t want that.

“I’ll find a clean suit for you.” He says, lowering her body to the floor and rising on wobbly legs, “You have to stay as warm as possible.”

Cold bit at her bare shoulders and she shivers. “Lotor…” she shudders, everything becoming clearer in her mind, “how... did you… did you bring me back...?”

It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be possible. Only trained Alchemists bestowed with the knowledge of Oriande could ever possibly hope to…

He offers her the clean suit with a serious frown, but it’s obvious that he is more than exhausted. “I had to.”

Her face falls, and she turns away, unable to accept the suit from him. Why, why did he have to ruin everything she tried to accomplish? This one simple thing that nearly everyone accomplished, a simple straightforward death, why was this beyond her capabilities? Tears begin to leak from her eyes, and she curls into a ball, sobbing. His otherworldly stories would have to wait.

“_I can’t do this anymore_!” She wails, “_I can’t – fix this! People think I can fix everything but I_ _can’t_!!” 

She was loved and exalted beyond recognition, and she was completely alone.

Lotor drops to his knees beside her, resting the fresh folded suit beside her. “I didn’t know…” he places a nervous hand on her shoulder, “that you felt like - that.”

“You weren’t supposed to know.” She says lifelessly, but makes no move to brush his hand away, “It was none of your business.”

“Tell me what I can do to help you.” He insists, “And I will do it.”

Allura shook where she lay, and Lotor could do nothing, despite his noble intentions. 

“I…” Tears well in the princess’ eyes once again, “I don’t even know…” She sobs, “I feel worthless and, and hopeless, and like the universe is better off without me and I don’t know how it got like this…”

Palpably unsure what to do, Lotor begins to pull pieces of toilet roll from the wall and offering them to her, and throwing them into the toilet bowl when she quickly turned them to mush.

“If you lean your head back over the basin, I can wash the blood out of your hair, if you’d permit me?”

Wordlessly, Allura nods, and Lotor stands to turn the water on, watching as the blood swirls down the drain and leaves a clean white surface. He knows he has to keep her talking, but the words do not come easily.

“This must have been Acxa’s too.” He shrugs, rummaging in the cupboards and pulling out half a bottle of shampoo, “I’ve been saving it. Now seems like as good a time as any.”

Allura gazes aimlessly up at the ceiling, letting Lotor tip her gently backwards to lie her head in the shower. He removes his gloves, claws sheathed to wet her hair through. Steam rose around them, warming them both. He hadn’t felt hot water in so long, he’d almost forgotten the familiar sound of the water rushing and how it could make him shiver. Allura seemed not to mind, wrapped up in a cocoon of blankets. Blood still stained her skin, but that would have to wait for the time being. The floor was slippery and uncomfortable by now, but she hardly cared.

“When those other cadets did what they did to me,” He begins quietly, fingers gently massaging her scalp, “things in my head became very, dark. All I knew is that I wanted my pain to stop.”

Allura pulls the blankets around her more tightly. “What stopped you?”

In nearly ten thousand deca-phoebs, Lotor had never spoken of this with a soul. He had shut it away and pretended that it had never happened. If the Empire ever found out, he could never have held on to power. Such an obvious demonstration of forced submission would destroy him. He had been prepared to take that dreadful secret to his grave.

“My governess.” He says, reaching for the shampoo bottle, “The Galra consider self-imposed demise to be shameful, and I wanted to shame my father in the most public way possible. She plucked me off the high railings at one of my father’s awful speeches and threw me straight into a hot bath. It was only then that she saw the damage they had done.”

“What did she do?”

“She was so shocked I don’t think she really knew how to start listening to it, she did what she knew best, which was to equip me with the skills I needed to defend myself.” He says, “I was rather embarrassed at first, they were techniques designed for females, but they were effective.” He smirks a little at the memory, “She started doing spot inspections of my progress, in the locker rooms, no less. I could live with the teasing, but the physical abuse stopped.”

Allura’s eyes prickle with shame. “You must hate me.” She says, “I have endured no such hardship.”

“I don’t hate you.” He replies matter-of-factly, “I used to think I did. Now I think our lives may be too short for that.”

“It seems a very odd time to start living in the moment.”

“Galra always live in the moment, Princess. A magnificent death on the battlefield could happen at any time.”

Her nose twitches as the shower-head patters water onto her forehead that he smooths back. “Do the Galra believe in life after – you know?”

He bites his lip a little. “The Galra believe that the great idol Vary Ty comes to us at the end.” He says, “He raises the fallen from the battlefields and exalts them to everlasting glory.”

“That sounds about right.”

“The universe thinks that all the Galra long for is to fight in honourable combat.” He says, “What they don’t realise is that all the Galra want is to stop. To seek the adulation beyond.”

“Alteans believe that, when you die, you either ascend to eternal life in one of the nine heavenly fields, or that you cease to exist in the darkness of Hamjir. You have to take a blind leap of faith from an impossibly high mountain top, and then all the souls that have ever known you will carry you to your destination. I thought…” She swallows, “I started to wonder who would carry me. Then I realised that I had slain more foe than I ever had friends.”

“It is not your time to die, Princess.” He says in that soft, soothing voice as the water flowed, “Perhaps when it is more shall know you for who you are.”

“No one knows me for who I am.”

Allura feels him pause for a tick, and she is hardly surprised.

“Everyone has my future mapped out in their heads, and when I can’t live up to it somehow there’s something wrong with me.” Pink clouds of lather disappear down the drain, and Lotor tips more shampoo into his hand to start again. He knew that feeling well. 

She was most at ease when talking, it seemed. It was in the silence that the tears came again. ‘_Keep her talking_’, he thought to himself. No one had ever cared enough to listen to him.

“I never wanted children.” She says it with such conviction that Lotor startles a little, “And yet I knew I would have to have them and, I couldn’t be strong enough to accept that.”

Lotor frowns; the production of heirs was paramount for royals, and far more important than anyone’s actual feelings on the matter. Most bowed to the pressure in the end.

“I could never tell my parents, especially not my mother.” She cringed at the thought, “I thought a bit of perspective might change my mind but, I never do.” 

“I had measures in place to select an heir.” He says, “That is if Sendak didn’t have me assassinated before I could get around to it. Several Galra physicians agreed that I was sterile.”

“What did that involve? – The um, the selection process, not the physicians’, I mean…”

“Multiple factors. Bloody slaughter in a fighting pit; you can’t ascend the Galra Throne without at least a few of those.” He grins, “Good aptitude, popularity. And my good favour.”

“Bloody slaughter seems a little archaic, by most standards.”

“I agree.” He laments, “But brutal ways must be changed slowly.”

“What happened to persecution?” 

He sighs, he deserved that. “I couldn’t see any other way that the Galra could be persuaded to change. The respect for strength is deeply ingrained, which more often than not translates to war and violence. I passed any lighter-handed methods off as wishful naivety.” He says defeatedly, “It isn’t up to me to change things anymore. That will have already fallen to another.”

“Sendak?”

“Most likely.” He nods, “There are a few others, but none of them quite have Sendak’s flare for violence.”

Allura sighs. “Another war. Will it ever end?”

Lotor had, initially, developed several escape strategies, for when they returned to their reality. All of which, he felt at the time, would be possible enough to execute. He would escape Allura’s custody fairly easily, and return to the Empire to fend Sendak off. Now, doing so seemed impossible. The more time they allowed to pass trapped in the Rift, the more deca-phoebs were flying by like torn-ticks to them. He would be a fugitive if he were to be discovered, and without a ship, or his generals, it would take all of his wits just to survive. One such strategy had involved taking control of what remained of Sincline from Allura, he had disregarded it long ago as foolish, but now? Those little voices that had long been keeping him alive kept whispering to him that if he ever wanted to be free again, now was the time to act. She was weak, and he was strong.

Taking back his freedom now would be nothing short of a miracle, and to do it, he would have to hurt her. Once, he would not have hesitated.

Now, nothing repulsed him more.

“Do you think we would have changed things?”

Silence, again, a void between them they could never hope to cross in its entirety.

“I believe that together we might have been successful, yes.”

She cannot see his face, for better or for worse, yet his voice is sincere. Her hatred of him has been strong for quite some time. And yet, he was capable of great kindness, even of love, and it conflicted her in the worst possible way.

“I’m sorry.” She says, wiping her face, “You don’t need to listen to my rantings.”

“I have no objection to hearing them.” He adds; “It’s not as if I have a huge amount of choice in the matter. Sit up a little Princess.”

Lotor towels off her now clean hair into tousled strands, and begins to run his fingers through the silky lengths. One thing that Acxa apparently had no need of was a hairbrush. 

“How are your injuries?” She adds awkwardly, hoping to continue the conversation in a less personal direction. She had noticed the way he grimaced slightly to move himself into a cross-legged position.

“Settling.” He says. He was lucky that no worse damage had been done, otherwise he may not have walked away at all.

An odd thought wafts into Lotors’ mind. “Allura,” he wets his lip cautiously, “What is the Altean word for ‘grandmother’?”

“Um, ‘Neygnhainn’.” She says, shifting her weight slightly, “‘Neygna’ for short. Why do you ask?” 

Lotor shrugs the thought off as needless frivolity. “It’s nothing, forget I asked.”

Fortunately, Allura seems more interested in a trail of her own thought. “Lotor - How did you do what you did?” Allura asks, her voice fuller and altogether more serious, “Alchemists with decades of intense training and study could not accomplish such a feat.” 

“I don’t know.” He replies quietly, his fingers stuck in tangles, “Ancients, I do not know. All I know is that the White Lion came to me. I begged it to take my life instead.”

Allura eyes him from behind a curtain of tresses, with what was either suspicion, or disbelief.

“It seemed the most obvious thing.” He continues, “I have not much further use for it, if I am not mistaken.”

“No,” she utters sadly, “perhaps not.”

* * *

It took several vargas to untangle Allura’s hair, and almost another to plait it into a manageable braid. He had then taken his leave to allow her to wash herself off, carefully disposing of the razor blade into the disposal systems, and doing a quick sweep for other sharp things. Sadly, there were plenty of them, and no way he could keep her from them.

And now she was safe, Lotor could feel the exhaustion in his own limbs.

Allura emerges in a clean suit, her face paler than pale and wearing a business-like scowl. She throws the pile of bloodied damp blankets his way. It was almost impossible to imagine that she had tried to bleed herself to death mere vargas previously.

“There’s much to be done.” She tells him, “Come, I will start the engine checks.”

“You need rest Princess.” He says. ‘_As do I’_, he thinks.

“I do not need rest,” She argues impertinently, “I need something to occupy my mind.”

“You’ve lost a lot of blood. We have been here for movements, a few more quintants will make no difference.”

Allura drops herself into the pilot’s seat, and almost immediately the words on the screen wouldn’t unjumble themselves in her mind. Her elbows hit the console, her fingers pinning her eyes open to force herself to read properly.

Her fist hits the seat arm with a growl. It was no good. She was no good.

Lotor offers her two ration bars, and a tumbler of warm water, and Allura scowls again. She wants to argue with him, and Lotor half-expects that she will, but she snatches the food from him readily and wolfs it down.

"No medic would clear either of us to fly and you know it.”

She was already shivering, her hair leaving a damp trail down her back.

“If you wanted to sleep here, to keep warmer, I wouldn’t mind…” He offers awkwardly.

Allura frowns, hugging her knees for comfort instead. “I was ashamed of the way I felt about you.” She wipes her eyes on her sleeve, “And I’m not good at detaching myself like you are, so…” She sniffs, “I need to not be near you.”

“It doesn’t mean anything.” He tells her, “It’s just for warmth.”

Cold bit at Allura’s damp cheeks, and she relents. “Don’t say anything, don’t touch me.”

She hurls the blankets at him and crawls beneath them, immediately turning her back to him and curling into a ball. Lotor turns away from her, back-to-back was far better than nothing. He hoped at least that if she tried to harm herself again before morning, that he might be roused by her moving.

Even with his back turned, it doesn’t take Lotor long to realise that she is trying to hide the fact that she is crying again, and never in his life has he felt so empty.


	14. Chapter 14

It’s impossible not to curl into him, deep under those blankets.

He says nothing, just like he promised.

Not even when her gaze catches his pools of indigo in the rustly dark. He was so still that she thought he would be sleeping, instead he lies quietly, one forearm tucked under his head. 

She could tell him how sorry she was, for everything she had done to him. The words prickle on the tip of her tongue.

No, there was so much that she truly wasn’t sorry for, and just as much that she knew he wasn’t sorry for either. So, she chooses instead to say the thing that she is most sorry for.

“I’m sorry for the things I said to you.” She whispers to him in the dark, “You’re nothing like your father, Lotor.”

“I deserved them.” He says, “I lied to you.”

“Still,” she says, “to compare you to him was cruel. You saved my life, and I want you to know that I would take it back, if I could.”

“And you saved mine.” He says, “As it turns out, unfortunately I am rather more like my mother.”

He was, she thought. Perhaps in some of the best, and worse ways. He watches her silently. She has never asked him, but she is sure that he can see more in the dark than she can, those golden sclerae must reverberate what light there was under these covers.

She knows she shouldn’t feel offended by this. Oriande rejected Lotor, and with good reason. He was hardly alchemist material – morally at least. Still, there was something about this that made the honour for her, perhaps somewhat less of an achievement. 

_‘He saved your life…_’ a little voice in her head reminds her. Yes, she thinks. Because he had to.

She should have seen more in him, right from the start. The sheer potential that he had, that power. If only she had been more careful, been brave enough to raise the subject between them long before it could ever cause such issues. She had always assumed that it would be a sore one for him, he clearly couldn’t shift, and he clearly had no way to control what innate ability he did have. Son of Zarkon or not, it was clearly possible to reason with him. And she hadn’t.

Perhaps they really could have changed the universe.

“Do you ever wonder,” she begins, “what it would have been like if there had never been a war?”

His frame shifts, long and heavy beside her. “All the time.”

“Do you think we would have been friends?”

A little chuckle reverberates from his throat. She supposed that it might have been likely that they would have been rather more than just friends.

“Yes.” He says, “Yes I think so.”

“I go to sleep dreaming of that reality.” She says, “I can feel the sun on my back, the taste of the wine…”

“We’d be so blissfully ignorant.”

“Yes!” She blurts merrily, “And stupid!”

“And intoxicated, probably.”

_And in love? _

Allura’s mind snuffs the thought moments after.

“Lotor,” She wets her lip, “I know we can’t take back what we’ve done, or said. But I’ve realised that I’ve let it get to me in ways that I shouldn’t have. There’s so much to be sad about that I got lost in it. And I’m not sure if I’ll ever really stop being sad, but…”

“There is no shame in the way you feel, Princess.” He says, “You won’t feel sad always.”

“Won’t I?” She murmurs into her sleeve, “Won’t you?”

The words slice Lotor’s heart open, and for a moment he can do nothing but lie there and bleed. Once he had hoped that she would be the reason that he wouldn’t be sad for always.

“Can’t we just decide to be happy?” She asks him, “And honest? Just until we go back. I know I can’t escape what they all expect of me, but for now, even if we pretend everything’s okay, I don’t want to be miserable. I just want to feel happy now. For if I don’t, I fear I never will be again.”

She is rambling, she realises. “Oh, I’m sorry, I can’t seem to stop talking…”

She did that sometimes. To fill the silence when she couldn’t bear to tolerate it.

“I’d like that.” He interrupts, “Very much.”

She smiled, and his heart thumped at his ribs – it was too soon to tell her. Allura was in no place to respond to that yet. He wasn’t sure that she’d ever be able to respond to _that_.

A contented smile breaks onto his face, and he curls himself into a ball beside her, closing his eyes.

“Tell me about the world with no war.”

And she does. And Lotor hopes with all his heart that her words will populate his dreams.

“_The smell of hot fruit pastries wafts into the air at the moment of daybreak on a fresh sea breeze. Vines rustle in acres of vinyards, birdsong flutters across vast plains to open windows before soaring over the heights of mountains and into_…” 

* * *

This time, when Allura awakes, Lotor is nowhere to be seen.

Eventually her own daft sweet nothings had lulled them both into slumber, and they had distracted her from that empty vat of sadness, if only for a night cycle.

Now, it was time to return to reality, and all the harshness it brought with it. They are both healthy enough to fly. Today was going to have to be the day.

Mirrors tell no lies, her mother had once told her, and the only mirror on this entire ship was currently telling her that she looked like utter shit. No amount of washing will take the dark circles away, or blush colour onto the paleness that she had almost become used to. Still, this will have to do.

Just as she begins to wonder what has become of Lotor, there is an almighty crashing coming from behind her that jolts her brain back into action.

“Lotor?” She calls, but there is no answer.

More crashing, and – pattering, tinkling of small pieces of metal against, something inside the airlock. Perhaps those _things _had escaped the locker prison Lotor had made for them, but she couldn’t see those either. 

‘_What in the name of Groggery is he playing at_?’ She wonders. They had to make exiting the Rift their priority, now that they had a barely functioning ship. Before anything else could go wrong.

Reassuring herself that Lotor was not anywhere in the cabin, she sighs to herself and rapped on the airlock door. ‘_Remember what you promised yourself last night, Allura_.’ She thinks, ‘_No more hate, or anger, or sadness_.’ All of that was a waste of her precious energy.

“Lotor?” She folds her arms, “What are you doing out there?”

He doesn’t answer her, and now she is starting to lose patience. Quiznaking hell, is he alive or dead?

“We need to prepare the ship!”

“Do not trouble yourself, Princess.” Comes the frosty reply from behind the door, “I am fine.”

He isn’t fine. He has always been a fine actor, but Allura can hear the shred of panic laced into his voice. The airlock has been secured form the inside, and she starts to use alchemy to override the schematics.

The airlock bleeps, and Allura slams her hand over the panel to open it. 

“What are you doing…”

Allura can almost make out her broken reflection in the shattered pieces of what was once a protective plate on Sincline’s hull. At first, she came to the natural conclusion that this was just the previous damage done to Sincline; the makeshift nature of the restoration meant that it would take very little turbulence to undo many of her repairs. But the atmosphere outside is as calm as can be.

Lotor’s tall form is curled up in a ball against the wall, his shoulders and arms hunched as if he was trying to force the outside world out, his chest heaving. It was plain to see from his face that he was petrified. His marks glow softly on his cheeks, and his eyes burn white.

In all their endeavours, Allura doesn’t think she has ever seen Lotor panic. The Galra Emperor had always been so refined in his composure that if panic had ever registered with him, he definitely didn’t broadcast it to the outside world. Then again, Allura was starting to wonder if she had really ever known Lotor at all.

The energy in the airlock is all wrong, it tumbles and dives in the air around them, picking up the fine dust in its wake and sugaring it like a fine mist in the cold air. It isn’t unrefined Quintessence, far from it. It’s the same crisp energy that he poured into her mere vargas earlier. It hummed inside his very soul, threading itself into the fibre of his being and knotting itself tight.

“Okay…” she takes a deep breath, “Okay. This is – can happen sometimes, when you lack the proper - training. Just, come inside and we’ll sort this out.”

Pieces of glass lie stir themselves in a puddle of water at his feet. He swallows and smooths his countenance over through gritted teeth, “It’s nothing.”

“This is not nothing!” She insists, unable to tear her attention away from the glow of his eyes, “Come inside.”

A eerie blue glow fills the airlock, reflecting off of the walls in a dancing shimmer. Allura wonders for a moment if the gravitational system had failed again, only to realise that her own feet are still very much on the floor. Pieces of metal and rubbish and almost anything that wasn’t bolted down started to lift, floating weightlessly around them.

Allura rallied her efforts. “Lotor,” she says, knocking a few wanton objects out of her way as she makes her way towards him, “It’s just your innate energy, it’s nothing to panic over.”

The energy billowing around them, it smelled like him, sounded like him. It zinged through the air between them, warning her not to get too close. 

“It always used to surprise me, back then.” She thinks out loud, “That you couldn’t… Never mind.”

She doesn’t need to finish her sentence.

Something had happened to him, enabled him to pull her back from the brink of death, and heal her wounds as if they had never been there. Or perhaps it had been there, all along. She had thought perhaps that the White Lion had given him the ability to save her once, and that maybe that would be it. Looking back, she had no idea why that would be a plausible explanation. It had granted her with the same knowledge it had given her, except that it could not make up for his lack of training in the art. 

“Just relax.” Allura tells him nonchalantly, “It really is, the highest honour for an Altean, to be gifted like this.”

Lotor shuddered where he knelt. In his first few movements on the academy ship, the full-bloods had given him a wide birth, more so than the other hybrids they victimised. Later he had come to understand that they had been afraid of his Altean lineage, of a power that he was completely devoid of. It hadn’t taken them long to realise that he was powerless.

Even Allura herself had wondered how he could possibly lack the ability.

His hands curl into fists. It was because he wasn’t Altean, not even close, no matter what his grandmother had said. He is on his feet with a feral snarl and turns his back to her, leaning his feverish forehead to the cool metal.

“Don’t fight it…” Allura warns, “The more you struggle with it the more dangerous it will become.”

His clever retorts dried up in his throat, Lotor swallows. He couldn’t admit to her that he couldn’t stop it – he had been trying all night, for Feyiv’s sake.

His face is wild in a single blink, raging and unhinged, just like she remembered him piloting Sincline, and without warning, his energy is pushing her backwards, hard enough to send her colliding into the pilot’s seat across the cockpit.

Pain cuts up her lower back and she winces. “_Don’t come near me_!” He roars, “_I don’t want to hurt you_!”

He peers down at her, his eyes tinged with that beautiful bright glow. She had always thought he could be powerful, and now he was downright dangerous.

‘_Quiznack will you_…’ she thinks, “Stand easy. I’m coming to get you!”

He stares at her speechless, and her resolve quivers. Her hand touching his seems cool, quelling the raging heat into calm. Together, they take slow and steady steps back into the cabin, stepping around the holes of revealed piping. His energy is turbulent and stewing, and Allura knows exactly what to do.

She hadn’t prioritised non-essential systems when repairing the ship. She could work on those more gradually, there was still plenty of work to be done. She ripped up the floor panels one by one, and kneels amidst the network of pipes and encourages him to do the same. “Sometimes, when it becomes too much for you to handle, it’s good to have a positive outlet.”

Lotor blinks as she takes his hand and gently presses it to the pipes underneath hers. Allura can feel his energy, just as potently as if it were her own, and directs it directly into the fuel system.

“Relax.” She says, this time at least a little in earnest.

Lotor finally starts to breathe again as the energy flows from his body. It was as if he could feel – everything around him, each leak and nick winding itself back together throughout the entire ship. She could control it, shape it to her will like it was nothing. The ship warmed in response, happy and healing. He could feel her too. Her power was something mesmerising, burning brightly even in relative depletion. Thinking to himself that he had never felt so connected to anything before, Lotor lets everything go. It’s like falling asleep quietly, feather-light and dreamless.

“You must have known…” she says, “When you were young, perhaps? At some point, you must have…”

Allura sees the confusion on his face and tries to explain it better. “All those with the potential for Alchemy, can, have events, outbursts, even if they aren’t trained. Haven’t you ever…?”

“Ever what?”

Her eyebrows raise. “Made something happen?”

For a tiny moment, his gaze is staring through her, and a spark of excitement in her stomach tells her that she is right.

“What did you do?”

Lotor stills. He still remembers their bodies crumpling lifeless against crumbling walls, bones breaking and skulls shattering, and the intense looming relief he felt when they did. Dayak could not protect him forever, he had known that. He hadn’t been able to do anything, not ever, except for one, sole, blind loss of control. His first kills. Not victorious, or hollow, but delicious reprieve.

“It’s alright.” Allura smiles at his gormless expression, “Most children experiment a little. It’s far too much fun not to.”

His fingers tap at his arm irritably and turns away to break the connection, but Allura holds on. “You don’t understand…”

Her grip on him is almost enough to startle him. “Let me try.” She says hurriedly, “Please.”

His eyes track straight down to her hand and meet hers on the way back up again, and Allura begins to wonder how many more horrors he had survived to tell her.

“I’ve said something haven’t I?”

“No-”

“Lotor.” She says firmly, “I know you’ve seen terrible things that I haven’t, but I cannot understand if you do not talk to me.”

Besides, she considers, there could not possibly be anything much worse than what he had already told her.

“It’s not easy to just, discuss these things.” He says uncomfortably, “These are the secrets that I swore I would take to my grave.”

“Well,” she sniffs, sitting in a doll-like position, “I’d be surprised if you aren’t already here.”

The twinkle in her eye surprises him somewhat, and he cannot help but smirk at the oddly welcome attempt at humour. “That’s dark, coming from you.”

“I slashed myself to put an end to my pitiful miseries, I nearly piloted the Castle into an impending supernova, you know, I was happy to condemn an entire race of people, I’m familiar with far more darkness than people seem to think.”

His interest seems to peak in that. She would have to tell him all about the supernova another time.

“When I was a child, they were, dark times.” He says, “There were still glimmers of hope in the wider universe that my father could be reasoned with, alas those that tried were struck down. He hunted Alteans, but his goal was to wipe out the one race he believed might be capable of standing in his way. So he purged every alchemist from existence. Can you imagine what he would have done if he discovered that his own son…” Lotor shakes the very thought away, “It wasn’t worth thinking about.”

As Allura leaned more and more into their connection to keep redirecting his excess energy, it began to feel far more sinister and cold. She had no interest in invading his privacy, genuinely, but memories were just so powerful that they evoked enough emotion to flood through.

It had all wanted to come out when his father was beating him. He could remember the feeling of the cracking metal beneath his fingers as he tried to hold it in like he tried to hold in his screams.

Just another little piece of who he was, what he was, broken.

“I knew.” He says emptily, “But I have never been able to do anything at will.”

Shuttering his memories back into the depths his mind, he notices Allura shakily prying her hand from from his, and hide the expression of shock from what he had just leaked into her vision without even knowing it. The scars on his back – she had seen them before. And now she knew exactly who had given them to him. Of course his magic could never flow freely after enduring torture like that. 

“What is it?” He asks.

“Nothing.” She says quickly, dusting herself off, “I’ll teach you to control it.”

He blinks. “What?”

“It’s the least I can do.” She says, “The lion chose you, after all. It’s about time you learned.”

As she says it, questions pop up in her head. The practice of Alchemy required an inner peace that she is not sure he possesses, not to mention that to train Lotor in the use of his gifts would mean untold devastation if he ever managed to get away from her.

And yet somehow, Allura is not sure that he wants to anymore.

‘_I could be useful_…’ He thinks to himself. He could study, and learn, with her help. He could make the changes that had to be made in the universe, if she would allow it. This was right, he could feel it.

Allura ensures she is quick to extinguish the spark of joy in his eyes.

“You need to walk before you can run. In fact, today you may even settle for standing.”

“Or flying?”

Raising themselves to their feet, Allura’s gaze falls firmly upon the unused consoles, flickering away and finally ready to be used. There are no more excuses any more. Time had run out, for her and for him.

“It’s time isn’t it?”

He nods. “Are you ready?”

She breaks his eye contact with a shake of her head. “It’s what we have to do.”

‘_Get a hold of yourself_,’ she tells herself, now is not the time to start crying. She is a Princess of Altea, for quiznak’s sake, it was time to let go of her silly preoccupations and do what she had always sworn to do, protect the universe, at any cost.

Distracted by the pressure of something against her hand, Allura looks down to see Lotor’s own curling around hers with a tender squeeze. A simple gesture of innocent support. And Allura is sure that she had never been given anything so very, very precious.

“Alright,” she says, hurriedly wiping an eye with her other sleeve, “help me fly this thing home.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I realised that this story has found its way onto tumblr, and it has really made my day. I'm not on tumblr, but I do browse it. Thank you for everyone who has shared and commented. I'm really glad other people are enjoying this very weird story. Hope you all like this one: :) :) :)

The next varga passed so surreally that Allura was almost certain that she had dreamed it all. For movements now they had had one excuse or another not to make the jump, now that there was nothing in their way, it all seemed, bizarre, somehow.

Ambling through pre-flight inspections and diagnostics was fairly unremarkable, just as it had been the last two dozen times she had run them. The ship has more than enough quintessence supply, hells, that was the only thing they had in abundance here. Her mind buzzed, there were so many possibilities if they could pull this off successfully. The paladins and Coran probably thought she was dead, as would everyone else. They would applaud her when she walked down the gangplank, with one of the most ominous war criminals in the universe in her custody. The Galra Empire would no doubt continue to be a thorn in her side along the way, if Lotor was right about Sendak seizing power after their battle, then she would have to be more prepared than ever.

And she would probably never see him again. 

Allura screws her eyes shut while she pretends to inspect the generators. He had been nothing but kind to her. There had been a few quintessence-related blips, but. But. It was plain to see that he wasn’t cruel by nature. Life had thrown impossibly cruel things at him, and, she lamented, would continue to do so. The things he had done were nothing short of depraved, she knew, but, in her arms, he had been softer than butter.

Could she ever forgive him for making his way in an impossibly cruel world?

Ancients, Allura didn't know if she could. All she knew was that there was a pushing feeling in her stomach telling her that she might, just, want to.

Pulling her helmet over her head, she hears Lotor’s sombre report that the guidance systems are green. The noise of the engines seemed deafening compared to the vargas of silence they had endured. She has hardwired her vambrace into her console now, so that all prompts and commands could be read and entered in Altean, rather than Galra.

“Engine sequences green.” She says, “Transcender functions green.” 

“Then let’s proceed.” He says, “Initiating inter-reality jump sequence.”

Allura can hear clattering below her over the engines, and notices that the three little metal creatures that she had almost forgotten about, sit perched on the arm of Lotor’s seat, their little screw-head eyes peering up at him giddily.

“How the quiznak did they get out?”

“We’re taking you with us.” He reassures them, scooping them up into his large palms, “You can ride with me.”

Allura gives a flat sigh behind him. “Let’s do this.”

She leans back in her seat as the ship begins to take on speed, its circuits and interfaces alive with quintessence. She was sure it hadn’t been like this on the ship that they had built together, but then again this was an earlier prototype. Her hands curl around the controls, not a quiver between them.

“Is it working?”

Lotor frowns a little from behind his visor. “I admit, I haven’t ever successfully performed a jump in this component alone.”

That was enough to make Allura roll her eyes. “Oh now he tells me.”

The ship flies straight and true, on its way out of the oblivion they had both been so keen to seek. Home was calling, wherever it was, and there was no going back now. Lotor begins to back off the speed, and she allows herself to take a deep breath.

Just as she is beginning to think that this all might work out after all, there is an almighty crash around them that causes her to leap out of her skin, and the entire ship rumbles like thunder.

“What’s happening?” Lotor gasps, flicking through screens of error logs.

“I don’t know!” Allura crouches in her seat as debris starts to fall from above her, “I thought I’d fixed it!”

“You had.” He shouts above the din, “The entire algorithm it’s set to, I think it’s designed for the whole mass of Sincline, not just one component!”

Dread punches her in the stomach as she realises exactly what that means.

“That means the whole thing is trying to break up!” She gasps, watching the pieces disintegrating around her. “Give me your hand!” She screams, “Now!”

The immeasurable momentum the ship has gained sent haywires through the monitoring dials, and Allura knows that she has one chance to hold this all together. His energy with hers is just enough, she thinks, if only she can just hold on. The jump would be done soon.

“Come on…” She grits her teeth and bears down, “Come on…”

With Allura focussing on holding the ship together, Lotor focusses his attention firmly on piloting. He had designed this ship with exactly this in mind, and he would be damned if the whole thing failed him now.

Neither of them see the transcender shear from its bolts until it is far too late.

He hears it briefly, groaning against its brackets, and then sliding across the floor, knocking him wide-eyed from his station and taking him with it.

Lotor would remember the sound of his leg breaking for the rest of his life. 

All two tonnes of refined comet ore crushed him against the far wall, trapping him far away from the Sincline controls. He barely hears the scream he makes. The pain was excruciating.

“_Allura_…_!_” he chokes as his blood pressure spikes, “_Allura help_…_!_”

Alarms blare, lights flash red, papers scatter. “Hang on Lotor!” She calls, slamming her flight sticks forward, “We’re nearly there!”

His hands pawed at the massive metal structure, trying to push its weight off of him, but to no avail. The more force they accrue, the harder the metal bears down into his leg and he let sit all out in a roar. ‘_It’s just pain_…’ He thinks, ‘_It’s just pain_…’

Finally, everything slows.

Allura’s bright blue light wanes, her exhausted form slouches over her station. And when it fades entirely, Lotor realises that it is completely, and utterly, dark, with the odd twinkle of starlight.

They weren’t in the Rift anymore.

Out of breath, dishevelled, but smiling victorious like a true queen, Allura wobbles to his aid. He could not remember a time when she had looked more beautiful. She kneels beside him to better look at his leg. “It’s alright…” She soothes him, “Let me just move this thing off you…”

He growls unintentionally like a wounded animal. This was hardly how he imagined his re-entry into reality, injured and pathetic. Once he had thought he might be able to outwit her, or escape her, as foreign as the concept was now, Lotor couldn’t have been further from being able to if he tried.

“Ow Jesus – Fuck!” He groaned as Allura helped to lower his shaking form down the wall to the ground.

Allura recognised the words – they were special favourites of Pidge and Keith, and she understood them to be particularly profane. “Did you just…”

“Quote your paladins?” He grimaced bravely, “Yes.”

“I’ll allow it under the circumstances.”

Her magic soothed his pain, and straightened his crooked thigh to weave the bone back together again. She wouldn’t be able to do too much more, he surmised, she would be utterly exhausted, and yet still she persevered.

“You’re a wonder…” He growls. He is beginning to think that he could easily become addicted to her particular brand of energy.

“Only sometimes.” She smiles.

“Did we make it?” He asks, leaning up to get a better view out of the window.

She nods, and he is sure he can see the stars in her eyes. “We made it!” She beams, “We’re home.”

The Cosmos. Never had he been so happy to see stars and cubic light-years of nothingness. Even the darkness was welcome. 

The wonderful sight of stars and space gives way to the feeling of her fingers resting gently on his thigh, and the touch sends chills through Lotor’s body - she is so captivated by their bright new surroundings that she doesn’t notice immediately, but she jumps out of her skin when she does.

“Sorry!” She stutters, shooting to put a few feet between them, “Sorry sorry… Oh Ancients…”

As soon as Allura is able to land this ship onto a planet with a diggable surface, she will beg the ground to swallow her up and never spit her out again. Out of all of her troubles, she hadn’t thought that accidentally molesting Lotor would be one of them.

“It’s nothing.” He says, “Consider it forgotten.”

“Look what we did…” She murmurs, her face positively glowing as if she had just run a marathon, “It’s incredible.”

She is incredible, he thinks. As his world comes back to him with the oxygen that he gulped down, he hears her gasps and they make him ache. Oh he longed so desperately to kiss her. When would he ever have another chance? He might live out his life never again able to tell her how much he loved her. His mind mocks him, imagining how good it would feel to scoop her into his arms, to kiss her and make love to her and make her feel as good, and happy and loved as she deserved to be.

No, she was only just starting to recover from a suicide attempt, for Feyiv’s sake. It would hurt so much more to realise once again that he couldn’t have her. His hand curls into a fist, and he decides once more, to control himself.

“It is.”

Lotor’s palm presses at the floor to help himself back onto his feet. Expecting to find dry metal there, he does a double-take when his hands hits shallow water. “What the quiznak?” He utters.

His eyes follow the flow of the water, the sound of the rushing crashing in like waves of panic. There, he sees. One of the largest water pipes in the ship, obliterated and gushing. And the cabin was taking on water, fast.

“It’s the water tanks!” She says, summoning what was left of her strength to address the pipe, but to her dismay, the water level doesn’t stop rising.

“There must be multiple leaks!” He says, resecuring his helmet, “We’ll have to stop all of them.”

“Lotor look!” She says, “It’s not just the water, it’s the fuel injection system as well!”

Sure enough, trickles of black oily fuel cut through the water like tendrils, and both of them have to scramble to their feet as the water rises.

Allura wades for the lockers, and pulls out the cans of putty they had used for repairing the hull. “Catch!” She throws one to him, and he begins to frantically pull up the floor again, looking for the source of the leak. “We might have to let it out if we can’t stop it!”

“It’s our entire water supply, we can’t just dump it!” He shouts, kicking open the maintenance shafts. There was at least one of them, he thinks, and lowers himself into the flood to have a better look.

His vision is clear for a moment, but then, he hears a gurgling around his ears, and a tick later, his helmet is full of water. His larynx splutters and chokes against it and he comes up for air, ripping the helmet from his head to inspect the outside of it. It was cracked beyond repair, little indents that might have been in his skull had he not been wearing it. But it wasn’t watertight, not by any means. Shaking up the can of putty, Lotor attempts to seal the cracks, but it just forms a watery, messy gloop that runs off the surface of the helmet.

“Allura!” He calls, desperately climbing up the ladder again, the rising water not far behind him, “Don’t bother with the putty!”

The ship rolls, the water sweeps him from his feet. She can’t hear him, that much is certain, and Lotor has no choice but to take a deep breath and hold it, as the water hit the ceiling.

He could hold his breath for a few minutes, and swim, his Galra genes afforded him that, but he wouldn’t have enough time.

It doesn’t take long for the water to infiltrate the circuits of the ship, and everything crashes. The light in the cabin dies, and Allura panicks to realise that she cannot see two metres in front of her face.

“Lotor…” Allura calls through her comm, “Where are you? I can’t see the leaks!”

How was she supposed to repair them when she couldn’t even find them?

A tapping on her shoulder draws her attention, and she almost chokes when she sees Lotor’s hair flowing freely around him, his mouth pursed so as not to release any air. His golden sclerae seem to glow in the water, and Allura remembers. He can see in the dark, far better than she can. Grabbing at her wrist, Lotor swims downwards, guiding her attention to the massive leak that was making its way out of the maintenance shaft.

Allura summons her power again, and puts all of her concentration into pushing the water back into the pipe system. It didn’t’ matter about the oil or the fuel, they could sort that out later, but if she didn’t do something soon, Lotor would drown.

He is treading water, lips sealed, but she can tell that he won’t be able to continue like this for long. He would die, just like she promised herself that he wouldn’t, in a miserable painful way, if she couldn’t do this.

She pushed and pushed, and it wasn’t quite enough. His diaphragm is starting to twitch now, and fear spikes in her blood stream. She wouldn’t let him die.

Her hand flails for his, needing the additional energy that he could give, and he did. Every last ounce, he poured into her, and let her take charge of it, as he drew her attention to other leaks in the system. His knowledge of the ship’s systems is invaluable, and she only has to push a little harder, just a little more, and finally, the direction of the water flow starts to reverse.

The water level drops. She has been holding onto his so tightly that it cramps when she has to let it go so that he can go up for air. All she had to do was keep going…

‘_Come on_’, she thinks, her breath misting up her visor, ‘_We’re not going to die like this, not now_.’

Mere moments pass, and then he is back with her, his hand in hers, all of his will focussed on one thing. The water tanks had the capacity for several tonnes of water, and together, they could move it all.

The moment that the last drop of water was safely secured into the system and the cracks sealed over, Allura lets her knees buckle, and Lotor is not far behind her, dropping onto his side in a leftover puddle. He coughs and splutters for air, his hair plastered to his head. He couldn’t take too many more near-death experiences.

Allura finally pulls her helmet from her head, and collapses beside him in a heap. Neither says a thing, neither needs to. They are alive, and that is what matters. Sodden and bedraggled, but alive.

She is the one that wavers onto her feet first, even though they are both still out of breath. She never liked to rest easy for too long, if she could help it. Who knew what other damage they had acquired? She offers Lotor a hand, and he takes it gratefully.

Their gazes catch. She has no idea who moves first, only that she throws her arms around him for dear life in a searing kiss that almost knocks them off their balance. He doesn’t hesitate for a moment, enveloping her in his huge arms and holding her tighter than she thinks she has ever been held. Her hands clutch at his cheeks, then his hair, desperate for purchase as his mouth claims hers completely and she hums into him. A soft moan breaks in his throat, fuelling her to kiss him harder, and softer and sweeter. Ancients if he wasn’t meant to be hers, why would fate do this to them both? The heat of his tongue on her lips brought back memories that she had tried to bury, of how good he felt _everywhere else_ and she trembles, pressing her knees together at the way it made her ache so pleasantly for him between her legs.

They both shudder a little in disappointment when Lotor breaks away from her, his hands settling on her arms to put a little distance between them.

“Allura no…”

“Why not?” She squirms.

“It wouldn’t be a good idea.”

“I don’t care if it’s the worst idea we’ve ever had between us.” She says, “Shouldn’t we be living for the moment? Isn’t that what we said? That we’d be happy, just for now?”

“It will only hurt more in the end!” He argues, “Just consider. You’ve been through a huge amount of stress, are you sure that you really want to do this?”

“I can want to kiss you without wanting to plan an extensive future with you!” She scoffs. 

“I know that.” He says, “I’m merely suggesting, that you might thank me in the morning when we’re both less, in the heat of the moment.”

Allura’s brow quivers very dangerously at him. “And why would I do that, Lotor?”

“I just meant-”

“You just meant that because I’ve been feeling depressed, suddenly I’m incompetent to make any decisions about my own feelings?” 

He glares at her silently, and she also remembers why she found him so infuriating.

“You know what? You’re right. It is a bad idea. I’m sorry I partook. You can find the way back to the Castle without me and my suicidal brain holding you back.”

“Allura-”

The washroom door has slammed before he can get any more words out, and he sighed. Everything he knew about women told him not to follow her. Then again, was he really thinking straight himself right now?

He wonders through the sopping debris that littered the ship’s floor, listening to the squelch that inevitably followed each footstep. Lifting a hand to rap softly on the door, he begged inwardly that he heard no sobs from the other side.

“I’m sorry.” He says, leaning his cheek against the door, “It was despicable of me to imply that you can’t make your own decisions.”

Allura doesn’t answer, forcing herself to grimace into the tiny mirror. She had promised herself that she would be happy now, not steaming enraged and on the verge of tears.

“I know you can want these things without wanting a future together and that’s fine,” he continues, “but, I can’t. I wanted a future Allura, I always did and I still do. I know that’s pointless. All I meant was, all of this is pointless.” He sighs, “Physical pain I can take, but I’m not very familiar with this kind.”

The door latch clicks, and Allura slowly emerges, looking him dead in the eye. She hadn’t considered that he might still dream of all that, she thought that she had certainly crushed those dreams when she had made choices that she never even thought she would. He was right, it was pointless to yearn where there was no possibility of a future. Then again, it seemed that the further that future floated out of her reach, the more she longed for it too.

She sets her jaw. They would have to set that aside now. There were more important things at hand.

“I’m sorry too.” She says, extending her hand, “Perhaps we should just, consider it forgotten?” 

Lotor took it in a firm shake, and that was that. "Consider it forgotten." 

She sidles out of the washroom to inspect the extent of the damage to the ship, as if nothing had ever happened between them. The flooding has desecrated the entire cabin, so that now it rather more resembled a littered beach than an orderly space ship. Only the lockers remained closed. Everything else lay scattered around them, soggy, and useless. She sighs sadly. What a horrible mess.

Sadly, when Lotor had designed the ship’s interior, water-tightness hadn’t been a priority. The water systems were, supposedly, as were the exteriors. He would have plenty of time to think about that in the rather lengthy captivity that loomed on the horizon. How bloody ridiculous. Wracking his brain, he didn’t think that there had been a single logged incident of cabin flooding on a Galra ship in the last eight millennia.

“The circuits are fried.” Lotor remarks, picking debris from the station, “Once again, nothing is functional.”

It had taken him a good six centa-phoebs to build this ship. These things tended to happen quicker when there is an Alchemist involved, but this unit had been entirely him. And now it was as good as a tin can of scrap.

“Sorry,” Allura says, tapping him on the shoulder, “even the ration bars are soggy.”

“This is one enormous mess.” He says, burying his head in his one hand and accepting his supper in the other.

“Do you have a manual navigation device?”

“Yes.” He says miserably, “It did live in the bottom cupboard with the vice-grips, Feyiv only knows where it is now.” 

Additionally, in the Rift, both of them had become used to the constant glaring blue light that blared whether or was day or not. They barely remembered that reality was dark, pleasantly so, unless you are trying to search through clutter for a needle in a haystack.

Allura starts picking at the blankets and mats that they had slept on since being stranded, all saturated, and hardly serviceable. She gathers them up in her arms, leaving a thick trail of water as she went, and starts to wring them out into the washroom basin.

“I can’t identify any of these celestial bodies.” He says, “We’d need two known points to calculate anything with a manual navigator.”

“We’ll get the ship up and running again.” She says, “We’re dealt with worse. If we’re lucky, someone might find us.”

“Only if that someone is friendly.”

“You’re the Galra Emperor, I’m the Head of the Voltron Coalition, hopefully they’ll be friendly towards one or the other of us.”

Wishful thinking, perhaps.

Hanging the blankets out over the consoles to dry, she starts rooting through the clutter, throwing things into empty drawers, making a dent in the mammoth task ahead of them. Lotor taps commands into his vambrace, in the hope that it might be able to identify their location.

“It seems to be an uncharted area.” He remarks when his search yields absolutely nothing. “There are a few stars of varying ages, but no planets whose atmospheres are consistent with life.”

“I didn’t think there were many uncharted areas left.” She says, raising her arm to compare her data with his.

“Neither did I.”

“So, that’s it?” She says, “We’re lost?”

“So lost that we’re somewhere that’s never been found.”

Frustrated, Allura starts punching at the hanging blankets, before throwing herself down onto the squelching mats. Why was this happening? Why couldn’t they have landed in a busy shipping lane and have done with?

“At least we’re alive.” She says, wiping her hand over her face, “I suppose there’s no light source either?”

“Only our vambraces.” He says, “We need to get everything dried out before we attempt anything else. Otherwise I hate to point out that we may well freeze in our sleep.”

“I can’t…” Allura groans, “I haven’t the strength.”

“You’ve given more than enough of your strength today.”

“Eat another ration bar.” He suggests, “You need to keep your strength up.”

She sighs. “I think we need to entertain the idea that we could be here for movements, at least.” She says, “I’m not about to become careless with our rationing.”

Shivers started to bite at her shoulders, and she can all but feel the dark circles under her eyes. She knew it had only been vargas since she last slept, but she couldn’t keep giving her energy like this. One day, it would probably kill her.

He is shivering too, trying to disguise it by pacing up and down. They desperately needed the thermoregulation systems to function to dry everything out, but even they hadn’t worked since the quintant she boarded. Nothing on this ship was going to work without Alchemy. And she had no more left to give.

“Allura…” Lotor trails, kneeling down to the floor to scrape something off if it in his hands, “Look.”

In his cupped hands lay pieces of nuts and bolts, ratchets and hex-drivers. All lifeless pieces, fallen apart, all that was left of those little metal creatures that the Rift had brought to life.

They had been annoying, in fact Allura had never had anything even remotely positive to say about them, but still. The way their little eyes peered up at Lotor before they tucked themselves into his seat. Their tiny lives had been extinguished when they exited the Quintessence Field, snuffed out as if they had never been.

“No…” She murmurs, “That’s… I mean I know we expected…”

“All I keep thinking,” He says, peering down at the disassembled pieces, “Is that it could so easily have been us.”

“It was almost us.” She ponders with a heavy heart, “We were just lucky.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating is going up as of now, NSFW stuff ahead.   
Happy Lotura Week everybody!   
Palinka is an actual drink you can get in Hungary, apparently.

“Lotor, what are these?”

Allura’s voice carries an inquisitive tone as it floats over the remaining debris. The last few quintants had been spent tirelessly, and tediously, clearing away the useless rubbish and putting to use what could be salvaged. The cold was bitter, and with damp blankets and no way of drying anything until Allura could mend the thermoregulation systems, so were their moods.

“Look.” She says, and only half interested, he steps around the debris to peer over her shoulder.

And he’d be damned.

Allura has been pulling up more pieces of floor sheeting, using a manual pump she had put together from pieces of pipe and to remove water from the ship’s infrastructure and pump it back into the washroom basin. What she had uncovered, nestled inside pieces of fibre insulation, was something Lotor had always suspected, but never been able to prove.

“What are they?”

Lotor lifts a bottle out and blows the dust away from the label with an annoyed frown. They all knew how he felt about them drinking on duty. Not that it mattered anymore.

“It’s palinka.” He says with a hint of disdain.

She pulls a face over his shoulder. “It’s what?”

“It’s a very heavily distilled wine made from the horned ioba fruit.” He says, “And it’s contraband.”

Her brow raises. “And what’s it doing aboard your ship?”

_‘Ezor.’ _“Apparently I had a discipline issue in my ranks.” 

Allura rifles through the insulation and pulls out bottle after bottle, to Lotor’s horror. Once they were all lined up neatly in a row, he saw there was enough alcohol to sink the ship. How in the bloody battle of Azaros had they snuck that on board without him noticing? 

“Why were your generals all women?”

“Sorry?”

“I’m curious. It’s just, it seems… unlikely.”

“My generals proved themselves superior in combat, intellect, and survival.” He says, “If your opponent can be fooled into thinking they have the advantage, the battle is already half-won.”

“How did they come to work for you?” She asks, “Weren’t you in exile before all of this began?”

He smirks for a moment, before a melancholic look settled on his face. “I head-hunted them, along the way.” He says, “Acxa and Narti were with me the longest. Zethrid and Ezor stumbled into a fight with them exiting some tavern on Philaphthra,” He says, inspecting each bottle, “and as they say, the rest is history.”

“I didn’t realise there were four.”

Lotor pauses, realising the error of his words far too late. It was also far too late to start lying about it. “There were.” He says matter-of-factly, “The witch took her mind away, leaving her like an, _empty vegetable_ so that she could spy on me.”

“You killed her?”

The clinking of the bottles falls silent. “Yes.”

His eyes fall shut, his back to her so that she couldn’t see it. She will tell him any tick now how wrong it was. For Feyiv’s sake, he didn’t need to be told.

The feeling of a hand on his shoulder almost causes him to jump out of his skin. “I’m sorry you had to do that, Lotor.” She says, “I can see it doesn’t rest easy on your conscience.”

“I promised them I would protect them, that they would forever have a place by my side.” He says, “I broke that promise.”

A part of him was glad he had decided to eject them. If he hadn’t they would almost certainly have died here with him.

“The night before Altea fell,” she says, “I made a speech on my father’s behalf that was broadcasted to the entire planet. In it I promised that Altea would not fall. I promised our people safety.”

It was a memory that she had locked away. It was far too embarrassing and hurtful to reflect upon. The entire speech had been for moral, her father had explained to her, but Allura couldn’t find comfort in anything other than believing her own words. The Altea that would never fall, had fallen by breakfast the next morning.

She had never told anyone. Who was left to tell the story of her ridiculous foolishness anyway? Had there been survivors, she was sure they would have heckled her in the streets.

“I’m sure they know that your promises bore the most noble of intentions.” She says, “Despite my mistakes, I keep telling myself that it’s never too late to make things right.”

Awkward silence. What could Lotor possibly have said to that? His generals were about as likely to forgive him as break out in a formation sajesa dance. But he appreciated the sentiment, all the same.

* * *

She worked on the ship for vargas at a time, pushing herself until she had no more to give. Often, she beckoned for his hand, for a power boost, and Lotor lay exhausted every night cycle, without a single ounce of energy to spare. When she could be persuaded to stop, she would tell him to sit cross-legged in front of her, and she would teach him to meditate, to channel his power and shape it.

He had thought that his Galra blood would complicate things. To his surprise, it came to him more easily than any skill he had ever attempted to learn. All those years of holding it in, it was wonderfully refreshing to be able to let it out. Even Allura herself was stunned. Children that showed a similar level of giftedness were separated from the others and trained by the Royal Guild of Alchemists, they went on to become royal advisors, ambassadors and diplomats. 

He may be Zarkon’s son, but he had Honerva’s alchemic brilliance.

“How are you doing this?” She had asked him three movements in, when he had successfully cast a small forcefield, “It took me phoebs to master this when I was younger.”

“I have a good teacher.” He had told her simply, but she had pulled a face anyway. He appeared to enjoy his training, it was like he had finally found peace with himself. Like he was, happy.

“I am proud,” she said, “to inform you that you have the alchemic competence of the average nine year-old.”

Lotor had let himself laugh at that.

The more he let her use his energy, the more he could start to feel her in it, what she was doing, willing the very particles of the machine to do. His magic had a synergy with hers, they were capable of more together than the sum of their efforts individually. It isn’t long before he can lean in, one hand in hers, the other against metal to bend it to his will.

Allura had thrown him a sceptical look. “Do not, break it.”

But his knowledge of the ship’s systems was invaluable.

Her worries were very familiar to her by now. He was becoming more powerful, and in doing so, becoming infinitely more dangerous. Any prison they eventually put him in wouldn’t stand a chance if he could disassemble it bolt by bolt with his mind alone. She had to trust him, and yet how could she, when she knew what he would do to achieve his goals?

He can feel the dither in the connection, she knows immediately. She tightens her grip on his hand and furrows her brow.

_‘I trust that you want good things.” _

It would have to do for now.

* * *

It isn’t for another few quintants that Allura succeeds in mending the thermoregulations system.

Lotor had gone to retrieve their supper, from a very dwindling cupboard of ration bars, when he came back to find her kneeling.

“Are you alright?” He asks her, and she looks up at him with a victorious grin.

“I’m quite alright.” She says, “And finally, we can be warm and dry.”

He can hear it, roaring into life around them. They’d have dry blankets, mats, clothes, and a means to dry out the ship’s other systems. He could have hugged her, but he didn’t.

“You are a wonder.” He says, helping her to her feet.

They set about rearranging what they could against the radiators, and then leaning their backs against the warmer sections of wall – the ones that lay over the heating pipes, and they felt warm for the first time in phoebs.

“Do you know what?” Allura asks him with a grin.

“What?”

“I think…” She makes for the cupboards and pulls out two bottles of palinka, “That we should have a celebratory drink.”

“Princess,” he chuckles, although she can tell the concept has spiked his interest, “You may be a wonder but I’m starting to consider you a bad influence.”

Lotor had sampled palinka only a handful of times. It had been a staple drink on Yelaw, where the ioba fruit grew plentifully. Apparently, they had once grown on Daibazaal, and despite being banned aboard Galra ships, many Galra were keen to seek a taste of home, and suddenly Yelaw had the most lucrative black market he had ever seen. The fruit was a bittersweet one, and he remembered it to be just on the right side of warming. It was one of the few poisons that could floor a Galra in under ten doboshes, if enough was consumed. It had also given him the worst hangover of his life.

“I said not long ago,” she says, passing him a bottle and knocking the cap off it against the console in a way that made Lotor wince a little for the ship, “That I wanted to go to the shadiest bar, in the shadiest district, where no-one knew who I was, and get absolutely shitfaced.” He gives her a confused expression, and she rephrases, “Sorry, paralytically intoxicated. But I’ve realised that I will never be able to do this. So I have decided that this will have to do.”

She raises the bottle to her lips to sample it, and rolls the liquid over her tongue for a moment. It’s fruity, but not sweet, almost like a brandied wine. She notices Lotor watching her like a hawk, like he was waiting for her to spit it out. 

“It’s, not terrible.” She announces.

Sighing, Lotor knocked the cap off his bottle too.

He wasn’t going to beat her, so he might as well join her.

“Cheers!” She says, holding up her bottle to clink it, and sees him giving her yet another puzzled look, “What do the Galra say before drinking?”

“What we always say.” He says, raising his bottle to her, “Vrepit Sa.”

“Very well then. Vrepit Sa! To no more soggy suits!” She takes a good guzzle from the bottle, and swallows as it burns her throat, “Gosh it is strong.” 

Following her example, Lotor drinks as well, and remembers why the Yelaw people had such a lucrative business within the Empire.

Once each of them have one empty bottle at their side and another half-empty in their hand, things start to become hilarious, and fun.

Allura was all over the place, challenging herself to do cartwheels, and failing, and then making him do it. No sooner than she had found something to do, had she bounced off the walls to another, and Lotor is seriously starting to suspect that Allura is the worst kind of drinker – the kind that runs off on a night out and you don’t see them again for vargas. Fortunately, within the confines of the ship, she can only go so far.

He on the other hand, would have merrily fallen asleep on the mat by now had it not been for her. On the side of pleasantly tipsy, he wonders if Allura knows that had she only shipped a few crates of this stuff to each control ship in the Empire, the entire Galra military would have been incapacitated, and she could have won the war by lunchtime.

“I know what we should do.” Says Allura, tapping something into her vambrace, and then retyping it when she misspelled it the first time, and the second, “We should play a drinking game.”

Lotor’s confidence only grew with the alcohol. “You could never beat me in a drinking game.”

“Hold my drink…” She says, loading up her vambrace holoscreen, “Emperor Lotor, I challenge you to an Earth drinking game!”

“I accept your challenge Princess!” He says, staring emptily at the ceiling, “What are the terms?”

“Ta-da!” She clasps her hands together with glee as a flashing board appears before them, “Spin the bottle!”

“What?”

“Pidge sent me the digital version a while back. Apparently this game comes with a caution, she assures me this is the ‘mother’ to end all versions.”

Allura is sure she can see some interest flicker over his face. “What does it involve?”

“You spin the bottle in circles,” she says pressing the bottle in the screen, “and it stops on one of these options. The board will reveal a challenge which you have to do. If you don’t do it within ten ticks, you have to drink.”

“I assume the winner is the last person standing, or conscious, points or no points?”

She takes another swig of her palinka. “I’m game if you are?”

A stubborn streak inside Lotor set in, reminding her that he could be quite competitive when he wanted to be.

“Alright then, you’re on.”

Allura lines up as many bottles of palinka as she can.

* * *

“Allura, truth or dare?”

“Truth.”

“If the Castle of Lions was burning, and you had to leave one person behind, who would you leave?”

The smirk on his face is more than obvious.

“You arrived, awfully quickly at that question.”

“And I’m awfully curious for you to answer it.” He grins, taking a swig from his drink.

“You, obviously.”

“Myself notwithstanding.”

“Lance.”

He pulls a face. “You arrived awfully quickly at that answer.”

“Well, he irritates me.”

“Like a bad smell?”

“Like a skin disease.”

Lotor is sitting opposite the princess trying not to laugh, and succeeding, somewhat. The wicked glint in his eye shines, and he covers his mouth politely, but he doesn’t allow himself chuckle. The Galra Emperor is far too composed for that.

It was time to change that.

“My turn.” He says, spinning the bottle, “Never have I ever.”

“Let’s see now…” She ponders, picking at her chin, “Never have I ever, got up on a stage with six xuru dancers.”

“Fuck you.”

Allura’s sides crease in stitches, and he isn’t far behind her. He concedes and takes a drink, he had all but walked into that one. “You’re really getting good with the Earth curse words. My turn.”

She spins. “Fuck, marry, kill.”

“Hm…” His eyes roll in a large circle as he considers, “Your black paladin, your advisor, and…” He says with a hint of deviousness, “Me.”

“Well that’s easy.” She says, “I’d have to marry you. Because out of the three options that’s the only thing I haven’t already done to you. I’d have to fuck Shiro and kill Coran.”

“That’s unfunny Princess.” The bottle spins with a flick of his wrist, “And unimaginative. What about your red paladin, your yellow paladin and your green paladin?”

“You can’t change your choice.”

“What if I just did?”

“Tell you what?” She says, “I’ll answer that for double points, if you tell me which of your generals, you would fuck, marry or kill.”

Inhibitions lowered, Lotor contemplates. “Well I did kill one.” He says light-heartedly, “Fuck Acxa, marry Zethrid. She’d feed me.”

“Well I suppose I’d fuck Pidge, kill Keith, and marry Hunk, for similar reasons, in that case.”

“Not tempted by the red paladin I see?”

“Absolutely not.” She says, “And don’t act like you haven’t fucked Acxa.”

Allura reasoned as best she could, Acxa was very beautiful, and very loyal. They’d worked together for a long time; she would be surprised if nothing had happened between them.

“I haven’t actually.” He says moodily, “I was very good at being emotionally and physically uninvested until you came along.”

It’s his turn.

The bottle spins, and still Allura cannot quite believe he has followed the rules of the game so far.

_“Kiss for thirty ticks…?” _He trails awkwardly, “Seriously?” Allura smirks at him and beckons him forwards with a hilarious grin.

“Come on you!” She says tipsily, “Pucker up.”

“Fine then. Fine.”

He puts a hand on the small of her back. She only pauses for a moment, a flash of her eyes asking his permission, and he accepts her kiss all too willingly. Thirty ticks, he had to maintain this for. As awkward as it should be, Lotor didn’t feel any such embarrassment. Just the ebb and flow of their kiss that drew out a spark of something more in him. He sucks on her lower lip, taking control and biting just a little, and she giggles.

“I’m getting quite into this game.” He says in a low voice that brought colour to Allura’s cheeks. He was far too much fun to play with, to kiss him so freely was so deeply satisfying that she would have to get them both merry more often. A sweet tingling thrill swept through her, niggling dangerously at a desire she had been so keen to extinguish. But the palinka was flowing, and Allura really couldn’t have cared less. She let herself relax, and enjoy it.

‘_This is the best game ever_…’ She thinks to herself as a hum escapes into him.

The timer goes off, and she is gone again. 

“Not bad…” Allura considers, sitting back across from him, “I’d give you a firm six out of ten.”

“Six?” He splutters, “Why only a six?”

She shrugs and sticks her tongue out at him, and he shamelessly sticks his out back. “Spin, Allura.”

Lotor has to blink before he reads it out loud. “_Take off an item of underwear without removing any of your other clothes_. Honestly where did you find this game?”

Allura laughs, the challenge is so simple that she laughs. Does the game think that she never went to school?

“Watch and learn.” She winks.

“I’m sure you don’t…” He says, but is lost for words as she shimmies her bra strap down her sleeve and stretches it over her hand, and then repeats on the other side, before reaching behind her back to unclip it, and pull it out of the nape of her neck, all under ten ticks, “-have to – and she has.”

“Ta-da!” She says, folding it up and casting it aside, “I told you it was easy.”

“Yes I’ll remember that the next time I need to whip my bra off in a hurry whilst simultaneously preserving my modesty.” He retorts, “Your turn.”

She presses the bottle on the screen, and blinks when it brings up her next challenge.

“_Give a B.J._?” She glares at it for a moment with a frown, “What on Earth does that mean?”

He shrugs innocently. “No idea.” He says, “We might have to skip that one. Spin it again.”

She does, and this time it at least brings up a term she is familiar with.

“_Receive a hicky_.”

Lotor’s eyes flash wickedly as he crawls forward to kneel in front of her. “Any preference as to where, Princess?”

“Just get on with it.”

“Hmmm, somewhere nice and visible, I think.”

“Oh don’t you dare!” She shrieks with laughter as he leans in closer, “Don’t you dare!”

She loses her balance and tumbles over backwards, pawing at him as he tries to restrain her arms. He loses his balance into process and topples across her, abdomen starting to ache with the constant unrelenting laughter. She can’t stop laughing either, prising her limbs from under him. Not about to let her get away that easily, Lotor wriggles himself around to straddle her, his large hands pinning her wrists above her head, and suddenly both of them are silent but for the sound of their heavy breathing.

Ten ticks. Lotor leans over her, lips so tentatively close, as if he is going to mark her neck. He doesn’t however, choosing instead to move up to her ear. He pauses, his hot breath tickling at her skin.

“_Is this okay_?” He whispers, ignoring the longing in his body to do what the game asked. She was more than capable of throwing him off her, that he knew quite well, of ending this game then and there. But she didn’t. She stared up at him with dark eyes, and Lotor felt he might as well have been naked before her.

Allura nods for him. It was more than okay, the feeling of him on top of her, restraining her even, was _marvellous_. He finds a spot just behind her ear lobe, first she feels the flat of his tongue pressing against her skin, followed by the pain of his teeth bearing down to mark her, and she hums completely involuntarily. The sound fogs his brain and he lets himself embrace the pleasure that teased at him.

She can feel his lips smirking against her skin, and chuckles. Clearly far too pleased with himself, Lotor sits up and allows Allura to do so.

“Hmm, not bad. But,” she says, dusting herself off, before placing both hands on his shoulders, and shoving him backwards hard enough to send him sprawling, “that was far more than ten ticks. Drink and spin.”

“_Take off your clothes_.”

Lotor’s brow rises in sheer entertainment, and Allura’s eyes become obscenely dark.

“You heard.” She says, her voice low, “Take off your clothes.”

“All of them?”

“All of them.”

Fine then.

Lotor holds her gaze long and hard for a moment, and for that moment, Allura isn’t really sure if he will do it or not. Then he shrugs his shoulders, and proceeds to undo his belt, letting it clatter to the floor in disarray. His hands work quickly at his various pieces of armour, and she wonders when he is going to stop, stare, laugh at her and tease her for thinking that he would actually strip for her.

But he doesn’t stop. The low rich sound of his zipper lowering has Allura’s gaze widening, suddenly she can’t quite breathe. He stands straight and tall as he pulls his suit from his arms, baring his muscular chest and abdomen.

“Now now, Princess.” He asks, a feral glint in his eye, “Now isn’t the time to be shy.”

Shy was not a word she would ever have used to describe Lotor. He was impeccably confident in battle, in leadership, and also, apparently, in the nude.

He looks more like a red-light stripper now than he does the Galra Emperor, the wretchedly slow way he slides his fingers under the band of his underwear and eases it all from his hips has Allura staring shamelessly, and he cannot pretend that he doesn’t love it. Galra females had never been very impressed at the sight of him, understandably, but the way Allura looked at him, with a blush on her face and a slight depth to her voice, it made him _feel_ something indescribable. He didn’t care about the game, he wanted her to look as much as she pleased. And if she liked what she saw then, it took all his willpower not to shiver at the thought, he would not mind in the slightest.

He kicks the lot from his feet, and stands ready for her inspection stretch his shoulders back and flexing his neck. Her eyes rake up and down him several times, it was nothing she hadn’t seen before of course, but her eyes still glaze over at the magnificent sight. Lotor doesn’t feel so much as a drop of embarrassment as he whispers to her in a low voice.

“I won’t have it said that I wasn’t game.”

Allura gaups. The Emperor of the Galra is standing before her stark naked, nonchalant, oh he was game alright. Entirely lost for words, she eventually settles on “Quite right,” before tearing her attention away to the board, “no drink for you.”

“That’s it?” He asks, “That’s all you have to say?”

“Oh, you have to stay like that for the rest of the game as well.” She says, purposefully not playing along with his antics. “Here,” she giggles, throwing him a blanket, “We wouldn’t want you getting cold now would we?”

“I should say not.” He wraps it around his shoulders, “I need a bathroom break.”

Picking up her vambrace, Allura’s curiously got the better of her. Typing the letters into the search engine, she very quickly gets visual and graphic answers to her question.

‘_So that’s what it means_…’ she ponders, ‘_well that’s not so shocking. These humans must think they invented these things_…’

But would she have done it?

It doesn’t take long for the answer ‘yes’ to fizzle out of her mind. Yes, she definitely would. She wanted to see him like that. Pleasured wildly and completely at her mercy, that confident smirk wiped right off his face. The mere thought of it made her ache even more.

“Lotor,” She says as he reappears from the washroom to sit opposite her, “We didn’t complete this challenge.”

“The cryptic one?” He says, “I thought we were skipping…” She flicked the images around to show him, “it.”

Lotor feels himself heat up from the inside out. Allura gives him a suggestive perked eyebrow, and he doesn’t know how he contains himself. Usually he would refuse, it couldn’t be good for either of them, but the last varga with her has left him so horny that he couldn’t have refused if he’d wanted to.

“Allura…” He stutters, “Are you sure?”

She eyes him dangerously. “I won’t have it said that I wasn’t game.”

Lotor stares speechless as she crawls over his body, pushing him down and pulling the blanket from his shoulders to leave him bare again. Before he can really process it, she is trailing soft kisses and licks down his torso until she is face to face with his manhood. He’s hard for her already. A deep moan rumbles in his throat as she strokes him with her fingers, places long, lingering kisses along his length, sometimes, painfully, diverting to his thighs, and then back again. Fluid seeps from him as she flicks her thumb over his tip and he shudders. This woman is going to end him, he thinks. Lotor bites his lip and forces himself to lie still as she applies the lightest pressure to his flaring ridges. His shaky legs won’t obey him however, and he digs his heels into the blanket as his knees rise to the ceiling for her.

A long slow lick up his shaft finally breaks his resolve and he moans. “_Allura_…” he pants, his body beginning to squirm against her warm breath.

Allura loves the way he reacts to her touch. Lotor utters curses to deities he doesn’t believe in when she takes his entire length in her warm mouth and sucks, her tongue wrapping around him and working him relentlessly until he is whining for more, clawing at the blanket frantically.

With each movement she becomes rougher, more demanding, her tongue flicking over each ridge, pressing into the flesh in between and stars he loved every moment of it. His body was beginning to anticipate the harsh unforgiving movements, he stuttered her name, tripping over the syllables. Allura shudders with glee around him. This is what she had wanted, to see him completely lost to pleasure, and he did not disappoint.

“Allura…” he stuttered, “I… Ugh… I can’t…”

His body, so fully sensitive from their previous exploits, can only explode in euphoria at her touch. Lotor wails as he is taken by his climax, rocking his body against her until he has no more strength left. His eyes flutter shut as his aftershocks subside into a deep satisfaction.

“Good?”

“_Good_.” He says, “But I think you’ll find you took longer than ten ticks, so you’ll have to drink.”

“Oh, of course.”

He is looking at her, she can tell as she reaches for her drink, his eyes eat into her as she washes the taste of him from her mouth.

“Princess…” he says in a gravely tone, “Let me return the favour.”

She pauses, and swallows the last of her drink.

“You must be aching desperately by now…” He says, sitting up again. He knows, he can smell her. If she had played that game anything like he had, she must be. It seemed very unfair to lie here in an afterglow while she bit her lip. “Let me make you feel good too.” 

Allura felt herself throb a little at those words. It was one thing to pleasure him, and quiet another to allow him to pleasure her. Some far-off part of her sober self told her no, but her body screamed yes, let him release you from all the frustration. Who in the universe would care if nobody ever knew? His lips find her neck, his hands find her thighs, and she all but melts into him.

She gave a muffled groan of satisfaction as his fingers found her core, sweeping from back to front over her suit. “Oh yes…” She gasps, “Yes please.”

Her suit lands discarded in a crumpled heap, and Lotor pulls the rest of her damp underwear down. He wastes no time in burying his face between her legs, finding her clit already swollen for him, his hot breath achieving shudders from her. Oh she was glorious to behold, all worked up for him. A deep-seated evolutionary hunger settled in his stomach. Six out of ten indeed - he would show her. 

“What _are_ you staring at?” She gasps, failing to grasp what he could possibly find so fascinating about her nether regions, but the very fact that they rendered him speechless was enough to excite her even more. 

It’s too long before his tongue finally parts her and she sees stars.

“Is this good?” He purrs against her, licking at her so thoroughly that the cold nips at the damp skin he leaves behind. His tongue swirls and his lips suck. The pleasure takes Allura off guard and she sighs to the ceiling.

“Oh, like that…” she gasps between breaths, “Ancients like that…”

Allura remembers the first time she felt his tongue, the heat and the texture with the warmth of his breath, not quite Galra and not quite Altean either. She could still feel his kiss, the way he held her down to mark her, everything that had made her burn for him. He gave and gave her what she craved, higher and higher until he had her teetering over the edge.

She throws her head back in sheer ecstasy, the shame at the noises she found herself making long burned away by unrelenting pleasure. Her hips squirm against the sensation, and the vibration of him groaning against her threatens to finish her. 

Allura’s mind goes blank – how long does he pleasure her for? She hasn’t a clue. All she knows is that when he sets a firmer, faster paced assault on her clit that she sobs, cries out, and comes, letting all her cares out for the universe to hear.

Only when her breathing steadies does Lotor resurface, looking as proud as punch with himself while she lies panting and sated. She grins at him, and he knows exactly what she is going to say.

“Yes alright, I’ll drink.” He says dizzily, wiping his mouth and reaching for his bottle, or perhaps hers, he really has no idea anymore, and the now dry warm blankets, “But I think we ought to call it a night.”

Exhausted, he collapses next to her, offering her the bottle, which she takes a long swig out of. He pulls the blankets over them both, and stares up at the ceiling with her for what felt like vargas.

Leaning her head against his shoulder, Allura tries to ignore the nausea gurgling in her belly, and the nagging doubts that she recognised as her sober self in the back of her mind.

“We’re going to regret this in the morning.”


	17. Chapter 17

Lotor was wrong.

_This _was the worst hangover of his life.

He wakes the next morning, or perhaps it is afternoon, with a groan. His head is pounding. His cheek is pressed against cold metal, and his entire body feels like he as slept a night on a cold hard floor. Which, he realises with another groan, he has.

Pressing a hand to the floor, he tries to push himself upwards, and immediately his head spins, delivering him back down to the floor with a thud. His stomach heaves, and Lotor has to fight to stop himself from vomiting. 

Allura is out cold beside him, snoring quietly, her hair muzzed around the back of her head.

Deciding that it was better not to move until the effects of the palinka subsided, Lotor buried his head under the blanket again. Feeling decidedly itchy, he blinks, and raises the blanket ever so slightly so that he could look at himself, and then her.

“_Oh Feyiv_…”

He was stark naked. And so was she.

Pulling the blanket down again and flipping himself over so as not to face her, the events of the night before floated blurrily around in his head.

He raises a tired palm to his forehead.

“Oh Feyiv.” He groans, “What have we done?”

Allura groggily begins to stir beside him, and Lotor seriously considers pretending to be unconscious, but she’s heard him, and it’s too late.

“Lotor?” She yawns, “Did you say something?”

“No…” He meeps, covering his eyes with his palm, and then regretting it sorely as Allura’s flailing hand smacks him in the face.

“Hnnnnn…..” She groans, wriggling incessantly, but there was absolutely nothing comfortable about their situation. Every joint and muscle in her body ached. Her head smarted, and the thought of ever drinking palinka again made her want to throw herself out of the airlock and drift away. “What time is it?”

“_I don’t care_…” He whispers. White whisps of her hair tickle his cheek, her body finally stills beside him, the hand that had so gayly struck his cheek now lying between them brushing half-heartedly at his upper arm. Locked inside this derelict ship with her, he had never felt more free than he had with her and those bottles. He had to admit, acting as juvenile as one might expect from any other youthful subject had been _liberating_.

“You know any good hangover cures?”

“For palinka?” He snorts, “If anyone had invented a palinka hangover cure they’d be as rich as quiznak.”

“Fabulous…” She whispers, finding comfort in the darkness of the crook of her own elbow. “Just, fabulous…”

His underwear lies carelessly discarded, hanging comically from the console controls. Considering going to retrieve his dignity, Lotor scratched his head as to how it had arrived there. It’s not as if they had been – animalistic.

Well, he thinks, perhaps just a little.

The silence hangs in the air, until he breaks it with a surprising joie-de-vivre.

“You jumped me.”

Initially unsure if he really had just said what she thought he had, Allura turns to him with a cocked eyebrow and narrow eyes.

“I did not.”

“I was there. I was naked. You jumped me.”

The playful shine about his eyes was painfully unfamiliar, and yet so very welcome to her. Allura finds herself a little woeful that she had not seen it before, but now that she has, she can scarcely look away from it.

She breaks into a lop-sided grin. “You looked especially good naked, and I had to do something to wipe that smug smirk from your face.” She shrugs, “Besides, I didn’t see you complaining.” She says, mimicking his low baritone while her eyeballs roll back in her skull and wriggling, “_Oh Allura… Allura I can’t_…”

She lets out a muffled shriek as Lotor throws her suit at her face, for the lack of anything better to throw at her. The giggles that erupt from underneath it warm him from the inside out.

“I do not remember you saying anything entirely dignified either.” He says, casting his mind back to her ‘six out of ten’ remark, “Or anything even remotely resembling words.”

“Well don’t go giving yourself a pat on the back, that was the palinka, not you.”

He snorts in derision. He had quite forgotten that Allura could give exceptional banter, when she chose to engage in it.

“I’m sure at least seventy percent of it was me.”

She’s actively trying not to laugh now. “I’d say it was fifty-five percent at best.”

“I’m flattered that my naked flesh drives you to that level of distraction.” He says cockily, “If I’d known that it could get you fifty-five percent of the way to speechless, I would have stripped off the moment I boarded the Castle.”

Only when Coran had Lotor securely restrained in a holding cell had Allura been allowed anywhere near him when he first boarded the Castleship. His beauty had not been lost on her then, either, as he sat dejected in the corner, considering how best to address her. He had been charming, even in surrender, and clever. So very clever. A leader had sat in that cell, and a person lay next to her now. The thought of him disembarking from his fighter wearing nothing but a wonderfully defiant expression sent another chuckle down her spine.

“Why do I get the impression that you might seriously have done it, had you perceived a proportionate benefit?” 

He’s still so close, and warm, and she doesn’t care a jot.

“Anything in the name of diplomacy, Princess.”

“There’s nothing diplomatic about vulgarity.”

“I know.” He yawns, “That’s why it was so… good.” He laments with a stretch of his arms, and she grins at him.

He’s happy, she thinks gleefully. She can feel his joy, radiating from him like sunlight. And, she comes to realise, that she is happy too, even if she is hanging, and dangerously close to vomiting. This is, nice.

Sharing their power was the easiest and quickest way to mend the ship. Lotor lacked the intricate skill required, despite being a fast learner, but his knowledge and his additional energy made the Allura’s job easier. Between them, they could make progress they could never make alone. But the vargas upon vargas of channelling each other’s’ powers begins to affect them in ways Allura supposes she should have anticipated.

She can feel him now, through the simplest touch, or sometimes even without. She had always been able to, to an extent, her connection with him had always been easy, it gave her a pleasant tingling feeling whenever she leant into it, his energy, dancing and flickering inside him, rising to meet hers. But now everything was clearer, and effortless. Somehow, it only served to make her smile. 

As his relative mastery over his powers grew, she realises that he was starting to lean in too, to listen to her innermost symphonies. It was hard to tell exactly how much he could feel with his level of skill alone, but she didn’t mind. Everything between them was open, and content. A simple touch of a hand became far more intimate than anything they had seen or done whilst inebriated. Sometimes she could stare at his concentrating face for doboshes at a time and wonder what he was thinking. Did he know how happy she was right now? She liked to think that perhaps he did.

“You don’t regret anything do you?”

He thinks for a moment, and just for that moment, Allura is terrified that he was going to say that he did. She didn’t think that she could bear it if he did.

“No.” He says after deliberation, “No I don’t.”

He would never regret any time spent with her. If the truth be told, Lotor didn’t want to get out from under the sheets he was sharing with her.

“Good.” She smiles at him, “Good.”

Yawning, he sits up and starts fumbling around for his suit. He could have sworn that he put it down in a neatly folded pile while Allura was drunkenly eyeing up his backside, and yet somehow it was nowhere to be seen.

“Did you hide my suit when I went to the washroom?”

Her eye glints up at him. She couldn’t help herself from engaging in this odd sort of humour now, even if she tried. “No.” She says, “Although I wish I’d thought of that.”

“If you did, you will never hear the end of it.”

“As long as I never see the end of it, I’ll find a way to be okay with it.”

About a deca-phoeb ago she would have considered a polite conversation with Lotor to be a step in the right direction, and here they were, hungover and snickering away together.

Her rational brain decides to make a reappearance at this point, shredding her joy to pieces.

This was wrong.

They shouldn’t be having pillow conversations like a married couple. Taking the piss out of each other, here in this terrible makeshift nest, nothing had ever felt so right. She had wanted him, in so many ways. She had thought it would soothe away the secret desire that she had harboured for phoebs, fulfil her in heart and body, just for a short time. But all it had achieved a very deep yearning, one from very deep down, that she recognised from the first time they had ever stepped into the Rift together.

Sexual trysts were the least of their concerns. They worked hand in hand, and when they did sleep, they chose to sleep side by side, even though it was no longer necessary. They might wake curled in to each other, or one half on top of the other. Their relationship was intimate, in more ways than one, and more so than it should be. She remembered what he had said to her all those movements ago after their kiss, that he always wanted more. What if she also – wanted more? She could want more, couldn’t she? Even if she knew she could never have it.

No, she thinks. If she entertains thoughts like that, she will be doomed to misery when he is taken from her. No more of that. Even if the very thought made her feel sick.

She was supposed to be supervising him back to the Castle so that his trial could commence. Not sleeping with him. Metaphorically or otherwise.

She was supposed to feel guilty.

Just as Lotor is about to consider hiding her suit in retaliation, he spots his own, scrunched up round the base of the seat with a sigh of relief.

“We have to keep pushing forwards with the ship.” He says, pulling his underwear over his hips, “We don’t have much in the way of rations left.”

He had checked a couple of quintants ago. They had two boxes of ration bars left, which would last about another phoeb, at most. After that – it wasn’t worth thinking about.

* * *

They manage a couple of quintants of back-to-back work, before the sleep deprivation starts to affect them. Allura is the first to gives in, wiping her brow and throwing the sleeping mats back down with a sigh.

“Lotor, we need to rest.” She says, calling to him from across the cabin, “We can’t do this on no sleep.”

“You rest.” He reassures her, dark circles lining his eyelids, “I’m going to carry on.”

If truth be told, Lotor was far too tired to concentrate properly. He was in just as much danger of messing things up as fixing them. She hadn’t thought too much of it at the time. He would have to give in eventually, she thought, his stubbornness would be short-lived. She would try to get a couple of vargas’ kip in, regardless of what he chose to do.

After three quintants, Allura was beginning to lose her patience.

“Lotor please!” She argues, “You are going to hurt yourself if you don’t eat or sleep!”

His fatigue burns into her, even when she has just rested herself. She wasn’t selfish in the sleep that she chose to take, but Lotor was simply refusing to stop. She wonders what he hopes to achieve once he has driven himself past exhaustion and into psychosis.

The two boxes of ration bars that remained in storage loomed in Lotor’s mind. So much so that when Allura had offered him one for supper, he had declined it entirely. Galra were good at storing energy, and lost their muscle mass very slowly, but if he had to go much hungrier he knew he would start to lose weight. Allura already had lost a little, he was mortified to see. He grimaced as he worked, and determined that she wouldn’t starve to death here with him.

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead, Princess.” He retorts, not even looking up from his particular project.

When she took up his hand again after the few vargas of sleep that she allowed herself, she can feel just how tired he was. 

Allura has allowed herself to nod off for the second time without him when a green light tickles at his peripheral vision, startling him out of his weakening concentration.

Half-wondering if he is seeing things, Lotor blinks, and pulls himself to stand up straighter.

He cannot believe his eyes.

“Allura!” He shouts, scrambling to look out of the window, “Allura look!”

She is sleeping so heavily that she doesn’t stir, and he dives towards her to shake her awake, before landing in the pilot’s seat.

“What is it?” She yawns.

“It’s a ship!” He says, with a light in his eyes that she had thought she would not see again, “An Olkari cruiser!”

The design was unmistakable. Fluorescing green lines built into the ship’s hull were an ingenious method of ship camouflage that the Olkari had developed against an invader the preceded the Galra by millennia. The issue number, ZWA6K8, emblazoned on its side became visible as it hovered ever nearer.

His hands shake as he implements the ship’s mayday protocols, launching one bright red distress flare, and then another. Finally, they were both going home.

Lotor hesitates. While he had never flown any of the Sincline ships under Galra colours or callsigns, if the Olkari ship thought that this was a Galra ship, there was a fairly good chance that they would pass them by without offering help.

“Mayday, mayday, this is Sincline-1384, repeat Sincline-1384, callsign Al-FGPXY, we have no engine power, we require urgent assistance, do you copy?”

The radio gargles in response, and he repeats the command. The hull of the much larger ship creak audibly as it comes ever closer, casting a shadow over them, and Lotor wonders if the ship has even seen them on its radars.

“Mayday, we’ve lost all power and we urgently need help, do you copy?”

Nothing.

“Why won’t they answer???” He roars angrily, as panic begins to rise inside him. They couldn’t allow this chance of rescue to pass them by! Perhaps their radio wasn’t as functional as he thought it was, or perhaps the Olkari ship had no intention of picking up prisoners.

Allura had sprung into action not unlike him, and he had expected her to start repeating his mayday calls from the console behind him, but she has remained silent ever since he woke her. He hasn’t noticed, too engorged in trying to attract the attention of the Olkari, that her helmet is resting under her arm. He feels her hand on his shoulder a moment later. 

“Lotor, wait.”

“There’s no time to waste, Allura!” He says, “Let’s try something else!”

“Lotor!”

Her hand closes over his, stopping him from engaging any more distress flares.

“What are you doing?” He hisses, “They won’t see us!”

“Lotor…” She says, exasperated and quite unsure how to tell him, “There’s nothing there.”

“What are you talking about Allura? it’s…”

He gestures to an empty region of the space in front of them, with wide and frantic eyes, and then he blinks.

The huge Olkari ship is gone, along with any hope they had of being rescued. Clambering to look out of the windows and portholes, thinking that it had indeed gone past them, a bottomless pit of despair opens in his stomach.

“Lotor, it’s not on our radars, it’s not registering our distress calls!”

“I saw it.”

“I know…”

“I saw it Allura!”

“Lotor,” Allura sighs, “I’m sure that you thought you saw it.”

The gravity of Lotor’s mistake digs into his gut with a devastating twist. It had all been so clear, he had even been able to make out the numbers on the ship’s hull, and identify the type of bolts holding its components together. He’d heard the thrum of its engines, and felt the relief as it flew towards them.

And none of it was real.

He had made errors in battle before, on the spur of the moment when he thought he had seen something, or heard something, but never had his mind done this to him before.

Her pity is eating away at what sanity he clung to, and when she places a gentle hand on his shoulder, he shrugs her off violently to collapse over the console in shame.

“You haven’t been eating, or sleeping!” She cries, “It’s affecting your brain!”

“Food and sleep are luxuries we can’t afford!”

“Not like this!” She argues, “Not if you make mistakes like this, Lotor, we only have limited numbers of distress flares!”

She knows he is trying to do this to spare the rations for her. The tear that ran down his cheek as he stared into the empty space outside broke her heart.

“Have a ration bar,” she says, “it’ll help you focus.”

She offers him one, and his stomach grumbles in longing. “No.” He says, “I don’t want it.”

“You haven’t eaten in quintants.” 

“I’m fine!”

“_You aren’t_!”

He wasn’t. The hunger was painful now. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been so hungry, he was sure she could feel it too. 

He peers down at the blaster on his hip through the crook of his elbow, and his mind begins to wonder as he releases a silent sob. He could barely remember the last time he fired it. It had protected him for a great many deca-phoebs now, an old friend that he could rely on in times of need. He supposed it would only be a matter of time.

Allura may have been the first to succumb to suicidal thoughts trapped in here, and Lotor knew that they would come to him sooner rather than later. There was no benefit in panicking, he always told himself coolly, no clarity in madness, they had to focus on getting themselves back to safety, because there was simply nothing else to be done, other than surrender to starvation. He supposed he had entertained a reality in which they starved; but that had been far off, not something to worry about unless it became absolutely necessary. But now, he began to wonder, if he was going to make mistakes like this.

What sort of future could he possibly have? Would it ever be worth it, just to sit in a prison for the rest of his long life? He was eating food, drinking water and breathing oxygen that could save her life. He eyed her form, a lively melody of curiosity and vexation.

But Allura had read him like an open book before he had even opened his mouth. No. No no no.

“_Don’t you dare_…” She growls, hands curling into fists at her sides, “Don’t you dare waste our distress flares and then think about leaving me here!!!”

The metal ship might have chimed like a bell for the ferocity that tore from her.

“I’m done.” He says softly, “With everything. I’m useless, Allura. I’m not enough.” He leans up a little to face her squarely, “But you are. And you have to go home.”

“And I am taking you home.” She tells him firmly, even though she has no idea how she could possibly be sure, “How can you spout such utter rubbish? You wouldn’t let me do this and I have no intention of letting you do the same.”

_Home._ If only she knew exactly where it was.

She had nearly left him here. Not once, but twice. She had longed for the same way out not so very long ago. He had pulled her back from the brink of everything, and she would not let him consider throwing himself away like this. 

He is shaking, his face perturbed and his skin cold and clammy. “Whenever I go to sleep, all I can see is your corpse.” He explains, and Allura can see the shiver in his spine jolt a tear from his eye, “And that after you’ve starved I have to carry on looking at it.”

A sob breaks its way out of him, and he hangs his head in shame. It seemed to be the ultimate selfishness, to wish that Death would come to him first so that he would not have to watch her suffering, and then rotting.

The coolness of her fingers against his burning cheeks is so very soothing, and he finds himself allowing her to tilt his face upwards to meet her gaze. Her thumb brushes the tear away. The gesture shocks him to much that he barely notices her shuffling closer to sit across his lap, her hips perching on the arm rest. Her arms wrap around him to hold him her, and his own do not hesitate to hold her either. Just the feeling of her warmth and her breathing brought him comfort. She was alive, for now at least.

“I’m scared too.” She says, nuzzling into his neck, and Lotor feels as if he may implode, “But we can’t let it get to us, and I won’t have you wasting away. You’re far too precious to me for that.”

His toes curl in his boots, and his heart beats so har that he is sure she will feel it. How long had he waited to be considered precious to someone? He had always shrugged it off as a ridiculous notion, like he had when he had begun to entertain that perhaps she could, just…

“I’m here…” she says, “I won’t leave you here, I promise…”

“You can’t be sure of that…” He murmurs.

Her finger stroke at his brow to tease out the slightly unkempt hairs there. “We’ll go together.” She promises him, sniffing back her own tears, “When we’ve run out of food and there’s no hope left and we can’t take it anymore. We’ll call it a quintant. And we’ll go without pain or misery, do you hear me?”

Allura feels him nod against her, his grip on her tightening, and her own tightens too. When he stumbled, she had to be strong, and she knew that if she ever lost her faith, that he would pick her up again. Now it was her turn to be strong for him. Death had always been a distinct possibility, but never had it felt so close. If it had to be, then she would be sure that he did not suffer, and that neither would she. Perhaps then, they would truly be even.

Just then, in the peace between the two, Allura allows herself to feel. The fibres in his suit, and the muscles underneath. A gentle rub of his arms, followed by his shoulders, and his aura came apart for her. He was terrified, even if he didn’t outwardly show it. She would be a liar if she claimed that she felt differently.

Somehow, in his arms, in the affectionate brushes of his fingers in patterns over her, in what could so nearly become kisses, or more, this is where Allura felt the safest. And she would make sure that he felt safe, too.

“Just don’t you dare think about going anywhere without me.”

A pile of ration bars sits discarded just within arm’s reach. She had left them there for him earlier, his share, and predictably, he hadn’t touched them. His stomach gargled loudly underneath her and he gives a grunt of weak embarrassment. His eyes falls at the sight of the ration bar, she leans over to grab one, and she knows what he is about to say.

“I will not allow you to starve yourself.” She tells him, and that, was that.

He smiles weakly. “Then I suppose I must submit.”

She tears at the wrapper, and the scent hits his nostrils. Had those bland ration bars ever smelled so good? But he still hesitates when she offers him a piece.

“I shan’t get off you until you eat it, you know.” She warns him.

He scoffs. “Are you going to force-feed me now?”

“Only because you won’t feed yourself.” She says, breaking a smaller piece off in her fingers, “Open wide.”

He gives her a look, and she frowns at him. “Don’t make me pinch your nose.”

Lotor relents with a roll of his eyes, and parts his lips for her to feed him the piece of food. He realises that sadly, he had become hungry enough to consider even the dry and bland ration bars a delicacy. Her finger brushes his lip, her scent all the richer for the proximity, and he feels that pull of yearning again.

His brain barely computes that they are touching each other, tiny brushes and gestures, a stroke of his cheek, a sweep of his hair. In their joint efforts to restore the ship he had become remarkably attuned to her aura. He was sure she could feel it too. If anyone had tried to take her from his arms in that very moment, he would have torn them limb from limb. Hungry or not, protectiveness settled out in his stomach. He knew that it was wildly presumptuous to regard Allura as his mate, but stars, as he lived and breathed, he wanted it to be true.

Once she had opened the flood gates, that was it. He was ravenous, wolfing down the pieces that she offered up to him, one by one, until the pile of ration bars was demolished, and he was hungry no more. That constant pang of discomfort must have been keeping him awake, because the urge to sleep was more powerful than ever. She feels his muscles relax, and then twitch, as he resists it.

“_Let go_…” She whispers into his ear, “_I’ll be here when you get back_.”

She holds him still and steady against her, until, as she had hoped he might, he falls asleep underneath her, peaceful at last.

She should feel guilty.

No, Allura thinks. She really, truly, did not care.


	18. Chapter 18

“Who am I?”

They had been lightly entertaining themselves with this game for twenty doboshes or so.

Allura is sitting with a piece of shrivelled paper attached to her forehead, a name scrawled over it in Lotor’s terrible hand. They had been quite lucky to find paper at all, and even luckier to dry it out enough to return it to functionality. Lotor found it inherently frustrating that the only piece of luck they had managed to stumble across between them involved scraps of rubbish.

Pressure thrummed in the air, hovering over their heads like vultures. The ship was so nearly finished, but the proximity to completion was bittersweet, they were still unlikely to have functional engines before their food supply ran out.

What little sleep they allowed themselves, the minimum to function only, did not come easily. Allura always made a point of meditating before bed, which she maintained was good for them both, and then proceeded to enforce a series of alchemic exercises that she had devised for him. She was sure that she lived for the light in his eyes when he surpassed a new challenge, and for a time, it seemed that there was no challenge he couldn’t surmount with dedication. She wasn’t seriously examining him of course, they hadn’t the proper time to spend on his education.

Allura had initially been wary, that is of teaching him too much. Lotor had the potential to be powerful, she had known as much the moment his hand first touched hers. In such a confined space, she had never had the opportunity to test the limits of that potential.

She used to lie awake at night at times and dread that by teaching him Alchemy, she would be solely responsible for the creation of the next Galra dictator.

As Lotor had woven her hair into an intricate braid with his will alone that evening, it came to Allura’s attention that she had not been plagued by such a thought in a long time.

“Am I, male?” She asks him, distracting herself from her own thoughts.

“Yes.”

“Am I, alive?”

“Yes.”

Usually this routine of meditation was enough for sleep, but the strain on their minds was such that sleep did not happen at all, for either of them.

Lotor had surprised her when he suggested a traditional game as a little distraction. This is why, at the end of what they considered to be their working shift, Allura is sitting opposite him, wearing a confused smile, and a piece of paper stuck to her head.

She rubs her hands together briskly. “Okay. Am I young?” 

“No.”

“How not young?”

Lotor raises a silent eyebrow, and Allura throws her hands into her lap. “Come on!”

“I can only answer yes or no, those are the rules.”

“Fine. Am I a public figure?”

“Yes.”

“A celebrity?”

“No.”

“A diplomat?”

“Yes.”

“Urgh…” she says, “I had no idea that the Galra played such tiresome games. There must be a twenty thousand of those in the Enri quadrant alone.”

“Well,” he chuckles, “Under the regime such games are played behind closed doors only, with the function of being tiresome.”

She hadn’t believed him when he had explained that this was a common game for Galra younglings – it had surprised her that the Galra allowed games full-stop, even amongst their children. She could hardly imagine him playing it after lights-out with the other cadets, barely old enough to write, let alone be in a military academy. He seems lightly amused though, sitting with one leg out and the other tucked under it, although she thinks it rather more likely to be due to her frustration than the game itself. Rations dwindled, and neither had started another discussion of their impending doom, yet it was plain to see that it lay heavy on their minds.

He is being brave, she thinks, behind honest eyes and half-smiles, even if he is refusing to show it. Below the light-hearted conversation simmered panic that they were both desperate to ignore. They needed something to be normal, anything.

They would play until they fell asleep. It was better than pondering the obvious. 

“Diplomats, diplomats diplomats… Humanoid?”

His eyes betray it first. “Yes.”

Just about, Lotor thinks, she would kill him when she found out.

Allura leans forward to stare at him through narrow eyes. She had a better chance of getting information out of him by cracking him up than thinking up these ridiculous questions.

“Outspoken?”

He laughs at that, but only for a moment. “Certainly.”

“Outrageous?”

He pauses.

“Possibly.”

“That does not constitute a yes or a no Lotor.”

He couldn’t help himself, it was too much fun. “Fine, fine. Yes, outrageous.”

“Repugnant?”

“Definitely.”

“Outrageous repugnant diplomats, you aren’t exactly narrowing it down, you know.”

“You’re the one who needs to ask better questions.”

“Oh…” She snaps her fingers, “Oh, that Othallythian Chancellor, the one who tried to have their midget-tossing bans repealed and the video feed went viral, what’s his name…?” 

His eyebrows raise the warmer she gets.

“Yenyax!”

“Yes!”

Allura yanks the piece of paper from her forehead, and claps her hands joyously. “The sector was under lockdown under Galra rule. I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting him.”

“I have.” He says, “I was charged with implementing control strategies on Othallytha when it fell. Yenyax was every bit as tenacious as his reputation would suggest back then. Their planet is quite beautiful, but they have a rather loose definition of democracy, let alone diplomacy.”

“It never ceases to surprise me,” she says, folding her piece of paper in two, “the things you’ve seen.”

He smiles. “Yes.” He muses, “Although most of it I’d not care to remember.”

Allura seems to have chosen her next mystery person already, and leans over to tack the paper to his forehead, when his hand rises to stop her.

“Actually,” he says toyingly, “On Galra ships, children place the turned over card over their heart. It’s the human variant of the game that involves sticking the card to one’s forehead like an idiot.”

Allura’s jaw hits the floor. “Are you trying to tell me that I have been sitting here with a piece of paper attached to my head for twenty doboshes, and I’ve been your own personal laughing stock for all of that time?”

His realisation of his mistake came far too late.

“You utter bastard!” She says, batting his hand out of the way to stick the paper on his brow with a grin, “Come here!”

“Stop it!” He protests, but she has already climbed halfway over him.

“Lotor,” she says, “you are going to stick this on your head just like you made me to, because if you don’t, I’m going to wait until you fall asleep and stick it somewhere really inconvenient.”

Finally he relents with a tight-lipped sigh, and allows her to attach the paper.

“Right, I’ve chosen a particularly ridiculous person, and I think it’s going to take you vargas to guess it.” She says, smiling in victory and rubbing her hands together, “Remember you brought this upon yourself.”

* * *

It did take vargas. They both fell asleep before Lotor could guess. Both had lain down on their sides as the weariness grew stronger, but neither could remember who had fallen asleep first, or even where they had got to in the game.

Allura must have been sleeping heavily, because for the first time in phoebs, she remembered the slightly odd dream she was having, but only because it was interrupted Lotor’s body tossing and turning beside hers.

She had known him have nightmares before, many, in fact, but none quite as violent as this one. Sometimes she could see the ghosts in his eyes when he woke.

This is a particularly bad nightmare. His claws are unsheathed, grasping and ripping at the mats beneath him. His voice, jerking and tumultuous, grew louder, until it was pitiful to hear.

Allura cannot bear to watch this for a moment longer.

“Lotor…” She says, placing a hand on his arm and pushing at him, “Lotor wake up!”

He doesn’t stir, shirking her hand away, and Allura grabs at his arm again to roll him onto his back. She slaps her fingers lightly over his face and ears, “Wake up!”

Suddenly his face is mere inches from hers, eyes wild and aglow, fangs bared, his claws unsheathed ready to clout her.

“_Please, stop_!!!” He roars truly deafeningly, his breath coming in puffs, and Allura can feel the sheer energy in the air around them.

She doesn’t think he is awake at first, but soon after the feral glaze in his eyes fades, leaving gaping holes of gasping despair.

“Lotor!” She shrinks back from him, and he immediately realises that he has all but made to hit her, “It’s a dream - just a bad dream!”

Air ripped in and out of his lungs as if he had just fought a forty-eight hour battle. These dreams haunted him, wherever he went. He never dreamed lucidly, or had any form of control over what he dreamed. He relived the very worst moments of his existence, again and again. Still, even after all this time, there was still an internal voice that mocked him; ‘_you deserve it_’.

He can do nothing but hang his head in his hands with a wretched sigh.

“I apologise for disturbing you.” He murmurs, “I have, rather frequent nightmares.”

A light brushing of fingers on his arm startles him and he flinches, to find Allura fascinated, as if she has accidentally poked a monster that she had absolutely no fear of, in such a way that he half-expects her to apologise for overstepping the mark.

“I’ve noticed.” She softly reassures him, “I’ve never seen you have one this violent.”

Again, light smooth strokes up and down his arm, to soothe, to bring him back down. “There…” her soft voice comes, Lotor can barely feel it all through the rigidity of his cold skin and the hammering of his heart. “It’s alright.”

He may well know it is, but her words comfort him all the same.

“Go back to sleep, Allura.” He encourages her, “I will be fine.”

Lotor lets himself lie back down beside her, wincing at the contact with the mats. He knows she has seen it. It’s ridiculous, he thinks. It was just a nightmare. They didn’t hurt anymore. This pain was in his mind. 

The last time he was woken by a nightmare, Allura had been angry at him, and had thought so little of it that it bothered her now. Now it repulsed her to see him like this.

“Do your scars hurt?” She asks, as he turns away from her yet again to relieve the pressure on his back.

They always hurt, straight after this particular recurrent nightmare, like his flesh remembers the fiery pain he couldn’t outrun. Some soldiers relived the horrors of war for the rest of their lives, and yet what Lotor had seen in war could not compare to the inescapable agony of his father’s belt on his back.

He shouldn't be fighting back tears. Tears did no one any good whatsoever. “_Yes_.”

“Come here,” She beckons, shifting herself up a little, “Lean on me.”

“What?”

“On your front.” Her hand slips under his arm, “Come on.”

Lotor lets her take him into her arms, and rest his head against her neck, his arms taking most of his weight. At first it feels awkward and daft, with him being so much broader than her, then once he had settled it was like they seemed to fit together, two pieces of a puzzle. Her fingers stroke at his hair in time with his ragged breath, and Lotor winces as her touch traces down onto his shoulders.

“Lotor….” She says, “I can soothe the pain a little…” Her fingers play at the zipper of his suit at the nape of his neck, “May – may I?”

He nuzzles his face into her neck in a nod, and Allura pulls his zipper down to his waist to reveal the scarring that she had only glimpsed once before. Sweeping his hair out of the way, from over his shoulder they peek out at her, daring her to look at them.

“Shhh…” her lips soothe, “Still now…”

Allura’s fingers stroke pleasantly at his scalp, then his shoulders, winding their way down to his back to slide underneath the fabric, swirling patterns of glyphs that glow ethereal blue and sink into his skin. She feels him tense at the initial sting, and then his breath slowing as her alchemy took effect. It felt cool and yet warm at the same time, like a numbing balm that left a tingling sensation. He knew it was all in his head, that his skin wasn’t actually burning or bleeding, how she was doing this, he did not care to ask. All he knew was that it was utterly marvellous.

She wove little enchantments of sleep into her work, until he went almost completely still, his elbows gave way, lowering his heavy form onto hers, eyes contently closed as the tension unwound in his muscles. She had had a little suspicion, one that she had had for a while now. She had kept it to herself, until she was quite sure. His body nestling so comfortably and his breathing so easy answered her suspicions without either of them having to speak a word.

Lotor would never have had affection, not from his monster of a father or his witch of a mother. Not even from that hard governess. All those years and never loved, or comforted or held.

But she can make it up to him now.

“Thank you Allura…” Lotor whispers into her neck as the flashing images of his dream slowly fade from his mind, “Thank you…”

Lotor feels a soft caress at the lobe of his ear, realising with a warm flutter in his stomach that she had kissed him there.

“Let the monsters rage outside,” Her fingers draw patterns down his lower back, “I won’t let anything hurt you in here.”

A shiver danced over Allura’s skin, and she shifts herself against him for more of that wonderful warmth. Love between them seemed determined to grow, precisely where it wasn’t supposed to. Allura knew that it was the very reason she had leapt out of the blue lion, not for justice or closure, but to save the life of the man she loved.

“How do you feel?” She asks softly.

A purr rumbles in his throat. “Like I’ve died and gone to heaven.”

If the afterlife was anything like this, he could make his peace with death quite easily. Gentle pleasure thrummed though his body, and he is quite helpless to resist or ignore it. There is nothing to be done other than sink blissfully into it. The sweet embrace of his mate saw to that. A slither of sense reminds him again that it would be more than presumptuous to call Allura his mate. His instincts screamed back at him that if she wasn’t, if they weren’t, then how could she make him feel this way? Loved. So loved he could burst. Her cheek settled against his head, her hands stiller now, lazily drawing patterns over his bare shoulders.

“You always, inspire feelings like that.” He whispers, his brow furrowing blissfully at the way she held him a little closer. He had always imagined this is how it might be one day, or perhaps even in her world with no war, they’d lie just like this. “It’s quite, euphoric.”

“I feared so much that I had broken your trust beyond repair.” She says, “It’s the most precious things that I can’t seem to mend.”

“I have forgiven you, _Szaralmem_…” He murmurs, an affectionate term that meant ‘my mate’, or ‘my love’. It seemed so long since he had uttered a single word in the Galra language. He doubted she would know its meaning, yet he couldn’t quite find another words that fitted, “And I know you have forgiven me.”

“Yes,” she ponders, realising that he is exactly right, “yes I have.”

Warm feelings prickle at her stomach. And she is sure she can feel him smiling against her neck, “Besides, if I hadn’t, you’d be dead by now.”

He chuckles softly. “There are worse ways to go.”

Fingers wound into his hair in knots she couldn’t undo. ‘_Tell him_’, she thinks to herself, ‘_tell him you want to kiss him_’. He is half on top of her with his zip half down, it hardly seemed that there would be a better time, she ponders. His breath flows hot and smooth over her neck, and she can barely think of anything else.

She did _not_ need him – perhaps they needed each other to survive for now, but soon, when she was back in the Castle of Lions, where she should be, she would not have it said that she needed a man. Her fingers brushed at his cheek, and even if she did not need him, Allura decided to let herself have what she could barely admit to herself she wanted.

She lies transfixed as he shifts just a little, leaning up and in, until she can almost feel his breath tickling her lips. Perhaps he can feel it too, she hopes so dearly that he does.

“_Lotor… would you mind… I mean… would you_…?”

His nose nudges at hers, his own lips breathless and so close, like he has read her mind. Her eyes flutter shut, the sound of his breath tantalisingly divine to the ear. _Please_, she finds herself thinking.

Finally, his lips press to hers firmly and she sighs, it comes out before she really means it to. It’s every bit as good as the forbidden kiss they shared in the drinking game. Their first kiss had been forbidden too. Brushes and touches at first, slow and sweet and then, oh, raw passion and heat and need that had built and burned all the phoebs they had worked together. No words are needed between them anymore. No words could even begin to describe their bond now. She thought she had loved him before, back when this all began. Now it feels like she had barely even known herself then, let alone him. What she felt now was, was… something entirely more intense. He pulls away suddenly, eyes trying to read hers for an answer, worried he had overstepped a boundary.

And if he had, oh stars she did not care. She absorbs his breathless eyes, his cheeks, his ears, his lips, so beautiful and serene. Yes, she thinks to herself as her hand finds his cheek, she wants him. Very much. 

He is almost a little taken back when she softly captures his lips again, one hand around his neck, the other on his waist to hold him to her. This time he hums into her and it’s the most wonderful feeling in the world. She let all of that guilt forced upon her for wanting him to float away into the nothingness. The blissful aching sensation between her legs was already too much. Her hands curl into fists in his hair. No more guilt, no more fear.

Lotor only has to shift his weight a little to arrange himself on top of her, comfortably between her legs, whereupon a whimper tore from her throat. She could feel him, aroused and heavy against her, while her fingers brush from his bare ribs up to his shoulder inside the suit that she was making deliciously slow progress in removing. All Allura can imagine is the fireplace that she dreamed about so long ago, when they had discussed all they had really wanted when returning home, how she had wanted a roaring fire and a warm bed. She could imagine the fire crackling, warm orange light dancing over their shadows while they made love on the bed.

She can feel his ears twitch under her hand, and then his lips kissing down her jaw and neck in slow, delicate nibbles, and she can kiss his ears from here. A sorrowful part of Allura rose up within the joy just to remind her.

How could she ever be parted from him?

She wouldn’t – couldn’t even. Every quintant the idea became more and more abhorrent. Her brain fought to think up a solution, any solution that saw them break free of the chains they were destined to be set into. Perhaps she could steal him away in the dead of the night cycle, and escape to a life of freedom beyond societal expectations of right and wrong.

Allura pushes those thoughts away and holds him tighter against her as if to refute them. Her fingers dance over his skin, too featherlight, he bites back a moan that rises in his throat, his cock growing a little heavier between his legs.

Her fingers pull just a little at the back of his suit, enough to ease it from his shoulder, and she can soothe him there too, lips toying with his ear lobes while he utters her name against her skin. Her fingers lock into his suit and tug at it, desperate to have him free of it, while her hips make rocking movement against his. She wanted his clothes gone, very, very soon. His left hand wanders up her back, to find her zipper at the back of her neck and ease it down to find the heat of her skin. They kissed each other tenderly in the dim light, no longer caring what it meant.

“I was afraid you wouldn’t want this…” She breathes, between sweet assaults on his throat.

“I always want it…” He quivers, he simply didn’t have the will to resist anymore. “There’s so much I want so badly, Allura, so much I daren’t dream about…”

“Say it again…” She murmurs, burying her face into his neck, “Please?”

Lotor moans at that. “_I want you Allura_!”

Lotor’s hips shift with his movements as he frees one arm and then the other from his suit and she hums into him, only ever more sure that this is what she wanted. Consequences be damned. Her hands slide their way down to his hips, and push his suit down.

“How do you look so good, when I feel like a dishevelled hat rack?” She gasps between kisses.

He had lost barely any weight, or muscle, whereas she, on the other hand, was far skinnier than she would like. It wouldn’t last, she told herself, if they survived. But a self-consciousness that had never plagued her before began to tug at her mind. Lotor does not even seem remotely bothered. He seems adamant on devouring her either way.

“You look beautiful, as always.” He tells her. His preference was always to see her healthy, but his preference hardly mattered.

Allura wriggles while he pulls her suit from one shoulder and then the other, and the gasps as his hand eases underneath the fabric, tracing downwards the heat between her legs. A gasp puffs from her lips as his coarse fingers run up and down, swirling around her clit and then down again to push inside her. Oh, she’s hot and wet, and more than ready for him, and Lotor feels his more feral side come alive. He spreads her wetness forwards over her clit and rubs at her, occasionally deigning to dip his fingers back inside her. He is everywhere at once, too much and not enough. She has to get rid of her own suit, with his unrelenting hand engaged as she curls her legs to kick free of it.

Lotor watches speechlessly as Allura reaches behind her back and unhooks her bra, fishing it out from between them so their chests could meld together.

“_I always knew you’d be the death of me_.” He breathes.

Discarding her wet underwear, Lotor positions himself to lie flush against her. She claims his lips again, too immersed in the sensation of him rubbing his cock against her. Allura groans and angles her hips for more contact. He starts kissing down her ribs, and Allura knows exactly where he is going. Normally she would have been quite elated, but it’s been far too long, and her writhing untouched body is so ready to explode, and she wanted him inside her for that.

“_N-no_…” She hooks her hands under his shoulders and pulls him up to her mouth again, one sneaking down to stroke him, “_Here, please_…”

He breaks the kiss with a loud groan. Hearing the most beautiful woman in the universe, hot and wet and begging for him was more than enough to make him obey.

Lotor gives a deep low moan of bliss when he is fully inside her. Blind white pleasure engulfs him at the heat and the tightness. Her eyes are delirious with it too, and he can’t stop staring. On so many occasions he had thought to himself, that she had never looked more beautiful, and he had been wrong every single time. Now, with her eyes bright like stars, gasping in pleasure underneath him, she had never been more beautiful than now, enough to bring tears to his eyes. He leans to down kiss her, his hips gently rocking and she moans up into him, moving her hips with his in a sweet and gentle rhythm.

Allura forgot how to breathe, only focussing on those wonderful sparks of pleasure where they met. The pace he set was steady at first, firm, slow strokes that allowed her to feel all of him and made her beg him for more. Then he obliged and more came, fast and feral without relent. He made her his, again and again, until she could feel a climax begin to brew inside her.

Her words lose their shape in her pleasure until all she can produce are musical whimpers and sighs, and then he slows again to deep, deliberate thrusts.

“O-oh…” She utters, clinging to him for dear life. His voice comes in grunts and growls of pleasure, and she is sure that the sound of him is just as delicious as the feel. 

He is with her all the way. He could already feel his knot trying to swell, he wouldn’t be able to hold back for long. She was utter Nirvana, and the greatest pleasure that Lotor had ever experienced. Her sweet moans climbed and climbed, her hips rolled desperately, oh she was so nearly there, and it only served to drive him to madness.

"_Please..._" She whispers.

His raw Galra instincts seized control, and he was entirely unable to stop himself. He thrusts harder and faster, mumbling her name into her skin, his own pleasure threatening to undo him at any second. 

“Lotor, I’m, _oh_…”

Coming, she was coming, he could feel her still, and then writhe against him with a cry. _That_ sound alone was enough. He held onto her for dear life as he rocked her through it, but he was coming too, and powerless to stop his orgasm tearing through him, or to suppress the sounds he made. He gulps for air, blind and lost in it, until the world eventually comes back to him, and he is lying gasping in her arms.

He is lightly aware of her kissing his temple and ear, and that he is kissing her back, somewhere. In the fog of sweat and bonding hormones it is hard to be sure. She squeezes around him, just a little and unintentionally, and his oversensitive body shudders. His groan seems to delight her unashamedly.

“I’ll get off you soon…” He murmurs, although if she kept doing that they would have rather longer to wait. 

“I’m quite comfortable, my love.” She whispers, pulling a blanket over them both with a spare arm, “So you stay right here.”

* * *


	19. Chapter 19

Sex, Allura and Lotor decide, is a wonderful way to forget.

When they were tangled in each other, the outside world didn’t matter. The future didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but them, their love and their pleasure.

Lotor’s pheromones were thick, musky, and quite delicious as Allura began to doze off beside him. Mind still stargazing after the release he had given her; she finds herself longing to seek his warmth again. ‘It must be bonding hormones’, she reminds herself weakly, that was why she felt giddy and wanting.

He was quite beautiful asleep, if indeed he was. Her fingers brush a piece of his hair behind his ear, and he stirs.

“Are you awake?” She whispers.

“No.” He replies, but he finds himself leaning into her touch all the same. The cockpit was thick with the scent of what they had done. He could no longer smell juniberries in her hair though, that scent had faded with time, she still smelled sweet to him, in her own perfect way. Being free to adore her this way made Lotor happier than he could describe.

The more they indulged, the more they wanted. Nothing compared to the thrill of their liaisons. And nothing, once all their denied, repressed and pent-up love had been released, could put it back in its box again. He was quite insatiable, she discovered, a little adventurous, and more than happy for her to enjoy him any way she wished. When the desire for him tightened in her stomach, she would snake her arms around his waist, hands smoothing down between his legs, and he would moan wantonly, perhaps for comic effect, and say ‘_take me, my queen’_.

And take him she would, until he yelped and writhed underneath her.

“You are adorable when you’re submissive.” She tells him with a kiss. He doesn’t mind. He would get her back for it later.

Life became a hazy blur of work, sex, and sleep.

Not necessarily in that order.

“We’d better not today.” She gently rebuffs him with a hand on his chest.

Her period had made its regular appearance, and now was not the time.

She had considered ignoring it and carrying on anyway, but it was a mess that neither of them would be keen on cleaning up.

Lotor was not disappointed. “I know.” He says. Of course, he could smell it, “But I want to kiss you anyway.”

“Very well.” She says, using a hand on the collar of his armour to pull him down to her. She adored kissing him. She adored every piece of intimacy they shared. Lotor’s hands make their way down her body to her thighs, and hoists them around his waist. “Mm, Lotor…” she says, “We’ll have to be careful for about a movement after this is over.”

She would be fertile for five quintants or so post-menstruation. From experience, it would be five days of vaguely desiring a mate, and easily forgoing one. But now that she actually had one, Allura wasn’t sure that it would be so easy.

But she was not risking a conception for any man. 

Naturally, Lotor already knew this. “I will simply have to find other ways of entertaining you.” His eyes light up at the prospect of a challenge.

“You’ll have to survive the next movement before any of that.” She says, “Besides, I think I can restore power to the engines in the next few quintants.”

“You ingenious woman.” He says, “How I am supposed to stay away from you when you achieve brilliant things like that?” 

“Hm.” She kisses him again, “You’ll manage.”

* * *

Thank the Ancients that the tampons that had spared her the indignity of uncontrolled menstruation happened to have waterproof packaging, otherwise Allura might have completely lost it. 

She is so close to mending the engines now, painfully close. They had achieved so much more together than they could have expected.

“We’ll be able to fly it soon!” She exclaims happily.

“But in which direction?” He quizzes her, “We’ve no way of knowing which direction is civilisation, and which is deeper into uncharted territory.”

Allura notices that Lotor is distracted. His lips are tighter than usual, his flow of energy a little erratic. More annoyingly, he isn’t wrong.

“How about, if we need to be discovered, that we make ourselves more discoverable?” She says, “We could re-route some of the power, we might be able to boost the distress signal further.”

“First we require power.” He says sharply, “And a boosted distress signal will not help unless the receiver is within range of their own scanners, they’ll get the signal, they just won’t be able to locate us.”

“I know.” She says, a slither of worry on her face, “We’ll get there.”

But would they? He knows that her optimism is a front for her fear, but rose-coloured spectacles would not help them.

He shakes his head with a frown. “This is all going to shit.”

“What has gotten into you?” 

She thinks very little of it, he is probably just tired. But then he starts to shift his weight, his other hand leaving the ship’s wall to press at his muscular belly.

“Lotor,” Allura asks, “are you alright?”

“It’s nothing,” he reassures her, “let’s continue…”

But as he says it, Allura feels her own abdomen twinge in pain, one that she was so used to that she ignored, but watches Lotor instinctively lean forward over his hand, eyes wide at the odd sensation in his body. She stares at him, and just, wonders.

No, it couldn’t be.

“My apologies.” He says. It wasn’t as if he had eaten anything odd. A digestive illness right now would be unbearably humiliating. Opening one eye, he notices Allura staring at him with a bemused expression on her face.

“What exactly is it that you find so amusing?” He asks her, still partially bent double over his hand.

“I, well, that is I…” She begins, feeling her cheeks heat up, and then she decides to put the embarrassment behind her. They had already had similar conversations in the past, of course. “I – no, no… I can’t…”

Allura knew that such intimacy was rare to achieve through Alchemy alone, but there they both were. She leans backwards in fits of giggles, and Lotor is less than impressed. “I’m glad that my discomfort entertains you.” He remarks sarcastically.

Time to bite the bullet.

“Forgive me Lotor,” she grins, “but I suspect, that you may be experiencing my menstrual cramps. And quite possibly my menstrual mood-swings.”

His eyes snap open. “Your _what_?” She shrugs awkwardly, and he glares back, “Have you finally lost your mind in here?”

“Don’t push it.” She says, “It’s all the Alchemy we’ve been performing together, our innate quintessence, it’s become, interwoven. Can’t you feel my energy?”

Lotor stares at the wall blankly. He usually put it down to careful intuition, they had become well-acquainted with one another, after all. When his brain started to think along the lines of feeling her very soul breathing beside him, he blamed his own raging hormones and gave himself a mental slap around the face.

Wordlessly, he nods with a gulp.

“Do you mean to say that you are able to – enter my mind like this, all the time?” He asks stubbornly. His voice is distinctly angry, and for a moment, Allura dreads that she has upset him.

“No. It’s more of a sixth sense that allows me to share in your emotive state, if only briefly.”

He braces himself as another wave weakens his knees. “Holy Feyiv, does this not bother you?” He asks.

It wasn’t like any other pain he had ever experienced. It was a slow, sluggish sort. Rather more like gravity was trying to gently pull his insides out of him. Unrelentingly and unashamedly. And it was agony.

“Of course.” She retorts, regarding him as if he were some whinging schoolgirl, “I’m just used to it.”

“My legs hurt…” He remarks nervously, “Is that, normal?”

“Yes, when I was younger I had days when I couldn’t stand.”

“I think I’m going to be sick.” He murmurs, moving to slide down the wall to nurse his abdomen.

“Wait there.” He doesn’t argue with her, thank the Ancients. She knows what might help a little, it was a trick she had learned from him, actually. It would certainly make do.

“I have brought you a zirnek.” She says, “I regret to say that I have neither meat nor pelts.”

“We can’t afford to waste those.” He tells her as she comes back from the washroom with latex gloves filled with hot water.

“And what exactly were we using them for?” She says sarcastically, “Here, they help.” She demonstrates by holding one over her belly.

They really do, Lotor has to admit, as the warmth radiates upwards and numbs what must be the strangest pain he has ever felt in his life. 

“You are the expert.” He says, “What does one usually do to cure this?”

“Heat helps, so does exercise. I rather liked what you did before, too…” She says, referring to the rubbing motions of his large hands over her belly to sooth the pain away.

It felt like deca-phoebs ago now.

“You had better come here then.” He smiles coyly, spreading his legs so that she can sit with her back to him. He sandwiches a few gloves between them, and rubs his fingers firmly and slowly over her abdomen.

“That does feel better.” She says, and he cannot find it in him to disagree, “I feel less inclined to murder you with an axe already.”

“Hmm.” He presses a kiss to her temple, “Likewise. I confess, this pain is rather different to how I imagined it.”

Oh, his hands feel amazing. “And?” She says, “How exactly did you imagine it?”

“Not, this.” He says, leaning his head against hers, “Not like something is trying to pull my soul out of my backside.”

She had to laugh at that one.

“Welcome to my world Lotor.”

* * *

The next two movements were not so much frustrating, as Allura had predicted.

They were torture.

Altean females always had a period of fertility after menstruating, it meant very little, usually. Allura carried on like always, perhaps delving into a little fantasy at night, if she wished. It passed soon enough. But this was the first time Allura had spent this time with a mate, locked in a broken ship. And this was not going to be easy.

Everything about him looks better, smells better. And she is sure that he is teasing her out of boredom. Perhaps he is getting the tail end of her emotive state as well, who knows? But abstaining from him seemed far more difficult than any other challenge she might encounter for the time being.

She had restored power to the bloody ship, for the love of the Sages. It was the single biggest leap forward they had made since exiting the Rift.

Yet all she can think about is how good Lotor’s arse looks when he bends over. And how much better it would look if he weren’t wearing anything at all.

Allura feels her ears light up an embarrassing shade of red. She was a goner.

Meanwhile, Lotor was loving it.

“Do you have to do that?” She asks him. Lotor has tied the arms of his suit around his waist and it working bare-chested. It wasn’t hot in here, nor had he done it once since they got stuck here. He is doing it to wind her up. And it’s working.

“Do what?”

“That!” She throws a vague gesture at him while he recalibrates the guidance systems.

“I can walk around completely naked, if you prefer.”

“See, if only I could record you saying things like that.”

He isn’t perturbed.

“Doesn’t this happen to you periodically as well?” She slumps into her seat.

“Occasionally.” He replied matter-of-factly, in fact she was dangerously close to triggering it.

“Well you can rely on my to be just as unhelpful when it’s your turn.” She says, “Are you making any progress?”

“There’s a lot of reprogramming to do here. I think your suggestion of boosting our distress signals is possible. Any receiver may not be able to locate us outright, but they might be able to triangulate a rough position. We should be able to reroute the power from the engines.”

“That’s great.” She says, peering down at the more clothed parts of him while he wasn’t looking.

His cock was looking awfully good.

_Vulgar_, she chides herself.

“Lotor?”

“Yes?”

“Please put your clothes on.”

* * *

At bedtime, Lotor finds her unsettled and blushing, the exquisite scent of her pheromones offset by the outline of her nipples faintly visible through her suit, and feels himself harden.

“Allura…” He says, “This is not helping my predicament.”

“Do you know will not help our predicament?” She glares at him, “Children. Screaming, non-sleeping, sicking children.”

“I’m sterile, remember.” He says, leaning to kiss up her neck, “Blanker than blank. I’m an embarrassment to the Empire.”

The laughter that explodes from her was just enough to distract her, for a dobosh or so at least. “Lotor,” she says, grabbing his chin and pulling him up to look her in the eye, “I take it that when the Galra physicians told you were sterile, that it would have involved in-vitro fertilisation tests?”

“Yes.”

“Using Galra oocytes?” 

“Yes. Ah.” He says as he works out what she is getting at.

“Are you sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you couldn’t impregnate an Altean?”

He blinks at her. Realisation punches him firmly in the stomach, or rather, the crotch. He was profoundly more affected by her appearance and her pheromones than he was those of Galra females, perhaps she could be right.

“I’ll sleep over there.”

Her hand grabs at his wrist as he throws the blanket off. “No, Lotor wait…” she says, “Come back, please.”

“I’ve faced some foes in my time Allura,” he says, “but I do not stand a chance against you – looking and smelling like that.”

“You, um…” her cheeks heat up a little more, “I do remember you promising me, _other_ things.”

“Hmm. I’m sure I don’t have the faintest what you’re talking about.” He says smugly, settling back down beside her, and infuriatingly, not initiating anything.

“Lotor…” Allura protests, but he is ignoring her.

Right, she thinks.

Shimmying out her suit, she kicks it aside and makes herself comfortable on her back. “Well,” she says, “if you aren’t participating…” one hand rises to brush at her right nipple, while the other eases into her underwear, “Mmm, I’ll just have to do it myself.”

She can see his form go tense beside her. Success. She lets her fingers tease her clit in small circles, and relaxes, enjoying the sensations with heavier breath and tiny whimpers and moans.

Those heavenly sounds sent shocks right to his already straining erection. No sound alone had ever had such a profound effect on him. He supposed she must be proud of herself.

“_Uhh-ahh_…”

Her voice had never sounded so good. She’s moving a little now, shifting her hips in a slow rhythm. His brain bombards him with thoughts of her breasts rising and falling with her breath and her eyes fluttering shut in pleasure. 

Oh Feyiv. She’s winning.

Just as Allura is about to start quite enjoying herself without him, Lotor throws her wrists over her head and climbs on top of her with a growl, his breath grazing her ear. “What sort of gentleman would I be?”

“_That’s better_.” She gasps.

“So. What do you want?” His voice purrs, nudging her legs apart to lie between them.

He would give anything to have this time with her in a place where contraceptives were readily available, but, as she correctly pointed out, they would just have to make do with other things.

He nips at her ear and neck, desperately fighting the urge to move his hips as he pinned her to the mat. “What do you want, Allura?”

Allura moans and writhes, trapped underneath him. Oh she wanted him to pound her over and over until she couldn’t stand up, until she couldn’t scream anymore. But she wasn’t about to let him think she had no control of her faculties whatsoever.

“I want you to beg me to let you come, my pretty prince.” She breathes, barely sure if this sort of talk sounded erotic or ridiculous, “But, my pleasure first, my darling, you have to earn it.”

Lotor groans. It’s all her fault. 

He devours her blindly, his body taught with moans and growls that she felt as his mouth envelops her breast. He’s hard and close already, she was sure she could press her thigh into him and watch him rut into a climax, but that was her fun to have later.

Allura tries to make herself breath properly as he makes his way down her body, inhaling sharply when he parts her with his tongue. His lips find her clit and kiss, so softly, pulling and nudging, and she’s overheating already. Oh, gosh he’s good at that. His eyes flash up at her, not prepared for the unravelled gasping blushing mess that met them. Ancients she was beautiful at his mercy like this. His cock throbbed, all the more for knowing he couldn’t have her. He would have to content himself with pulling sounds from her that she was utterly ashamed of in every way.

She squirms and shakes around him, but he doesn’t relent, or hurry. He would make this as good for her as he could, for as long as he could.

His fingers are inside her now, pumping in rhythm with his tongue and lips, Allura can feel every growl of his throat and it’s just _magical_. She wished so much that she could have him properly.

The next time she had a fertile phase, they would be able to do whatever they liked.

Then a terribly real, unerotic thought strikes her.

“Lotor…” She says, shifting her weight, “I want you inside me.”

He stops in his ministrations to make eye-contact with her. “We can’t, Allura, you said so yourself.”

“The next time I feel like this…” she begins, “won’t be for another five movements. We don’t have enough food for two movements, let alone five. So, so, if we get out of here alive, I can safely get a contraceptive from a medbay.” A single tear rolls down her face as she cups his in her hand, “And if we don’t get out of here, well it will hardly matter if I’m pregnant or not, will it?”

Her words knock him from his stupor of hormones. In two-and-a-bit movements, they would either be alive and separated, or dead.

There wouldn’t be a next time.

“I want this with _you, _Lotor.” She says, “I’ve never felt like this, I don’t want to miss it now, please...”

She was right, of course.

He stares at her, and swallows a lump in his throat. For her, it really was now or never.

_And she wanted this with him. _

He rises so that he can lie on top of her again, taking her hand in his. Until now, Lotor didn’t know that he had it in him to love another so much.

“Allura…” He says, dazed with the assault of emotion and sex, “Are you sure?”

She nods defiantly. “Yes I am.”

“Alright…” he whispers, hands finding her hips to steady her. He’s perfect inside her, the flared ridges of his cock stroke at her inner walls and threaten to undo her all over again.

“_Are you okay_?”

She nods. “_In heaven_…” She breathes, “_Oh_…”

He’s moving, just the way she wanted, driving her into a delirium.

“_I love you_…” she whispers into his ear, arms billowing to pull him closer, “_I love you I love you_….”

“_Ah-h_…” She clenches around him, and for a torn tick he is sure that he passed out and came around again, “_I love you too_.” He gasps, his hand grasping hers again for a short moment. She smiles, eyes bright and alive, he’s sure he must be grinning like a fool too.

* * *

Even when it was time to get up, Lotor was completely unable to stand.

All their hard work last night had brought her fertility phase to a conclusion, in the form of five orgasms between them. He lay strewn underneath her, exactly where she had thrown him after round number two.

“_Every five movements, you say_?” He had puffed as he recovered, wide-eyed from his last orgasm.

“_Mm-hm_.”

She had, officially, won.

* * *


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tissues. Fluff and cheese, cheese and fluff. I cried. 
> 
> The end, or is it?

* * *

“Lotor…”

“Hmm?”

“I’m hungry.”

He holds her a little tighter.

“I know, Princess.”

She’s cold. He has turned up the heating systems and is trying his best to keep her close, but he cannot keep her warm. At first, her Quintessence kept her going, but after time, even that began to dwindle, leaving her nothing but a shell of what she once was.

This isn’t how she thought it would end.

She swore that she wasn’t going to be scared when the time came. She was a Princess of Altea, she would not cower, or flinch in the face of death. And yet, somehow, she was doing exactly that.

It was easier to bury her head into Lotor’s shoulder.

“One more quintant.” He begs her, “Please, for me.”

A tear ran down her cheek. She would try, for him. If he holds her tightly enough, she doesn’t feel the hunger as much.

He was hungry too, but just as he feared, his physiology could cope a little better, whereas hers could not. He tried to look after her, so very much. He is fighting fate, despite their promise. He tried to give her his energy, like he had done before. She would not take the very last of it, even though it was freely offered. He grumbled about it, reiterating previous promises to lay down his life for her. Allura still refused. The one thing that seemed worse to her was to suffer alone.

“I’m sorry…” She says, “I screwed this up…”

“No more of that.” He tells her, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

Lotor has cradled her almost into a slumber. He was desperate to lay his head down beside her once more, yet something told Lotor that if he allowed Allura to sleep now, that she might never wake up again. He couldn’t commit to sleep. He had to know that she was still breathing. He couldn’t watch his nightmares become real. Then he couldn’t do what needed to be done, either.

Allura was more pragmatic though. Perhaps she always was, when it came to it. Again and again she told him, he never really listened. She hung on. She so badly wanted to hang on for as long as he could. She couldn’t just leave him here, when she promised she would fight. She fought and fought. But her body had had enough.

“_It’s time, Lotor_.” She whispers to him one night.

“No.” He tells her, “We can keep going. We can!”

Her hand grabs at his wrist. “We’ve tried.” She says, “We did our best. I don’t want to die like this.”

Tears spill from his eyes and won’t stop. His form collapses over her in a wail that wracked at his soul. It would take between four and six agonising movements for them to starve completely, for them to digest their own bodies from the inside out. Lotor had tried to give the Colony Alteans some kind of mercy, and yet when it came to it, he couldn’t, wouldn’t, pull the trigger on the woman he loved.

“We promised.” She reminds him weakly, hands soothing at his shoulders as he wept into her front, “No pain, no suffering. I want my death to be in dignity.”

“I won’t allow you to suffer.”

“Lotor,” she strokes his hair gently, “I’m suffering now.”

His entire body began to shake at those very simple words.

“Please,” she begs him, “What’s awaiting us in that brand new universe anyway? A metaphorical gilded cage for me, a literal cage for you? We can be free of all that. We just have to be brave.”

“But it will mean that I’ve failed you.”

“You haven’t failed me, my love.” She cries quietly, “We did more together than we ever could have accomplished alone.” 

“I can’t lose you!” He says. He had lost everything he’d ever loved.

“You won’t lose me.” Her hand interlaces with his, “It’ll be better on the other side, and I’ll be right there with you.”

“How can you know for sure?” 

“Oriande taught me many things.” She says, “You have to trust me now.”

Lifting his head to peer down at her, and then at the pilot’s seat, Lotor can barely think for crying. Galra didn’t cry, some didn’t even have tear ducts. Perhaps Alteans did, but Lotor could not see how the fogginess of the emotion could ever outweigh the benefit.

He doesn’t know how his body stumbles over to the console. His brain is overloaded, his body dehydrated and ravenous. His hand falters over the controls. All he had to do was tap in a few commands, and the cabin would slowly start to depressurise. They would gradually fall asleep, and not wake up again. 

His knowledge in this subject was unbearable now. This is what he deserved, for all the death he had caused. For every cold and calculated decision, every fate he sealed, this was his punishment. To be forced to decide hers. 

“_Allura_…” He shudders, “_I can’t_…”

_Do it_, he urges himself. Why couldn’t he do it? It was the most logical thing to do, any fool could see that. Even she was telling him to do it.

“_You can_.” She tells him, “_You are courageous, and good, and I know that you can do it for me_.”

She was right, she was right in every way. The universe held nothing for him now, he would be making them suffer for nothing. But he loved her, his brain argued.

He breathed.

If he loved her, he would have to let her go. 

His hand darted over the console.

One.

_They had first danced flying through the labyrinths of Thayserix. She had bested him there, the battlefield he had chosen. If only he had known. _

Two.

_They met, a fine layer of impenetrable Altean glass between them, and an infinity of possibilities. He tells her their fathers were friends once, that there must be hope for them too. He does not mean it. He would slowly gain her trust, he would use it, until it no longer suited him._

Three.

_His heart beats when he sees her. She is quite brilliant, now that he has become acquainted with her. He tells himself time and time again that he is not here to amuse himself. But the disarming warmth in his stomach will not go away. He starts to want her at his side beyond all logical explanation, against his better judgement. They enter the Rift and he loses it. So does she. _

Done.

It was done.

Somewhere, he can hear her weakened voice murmuring ‘_thank you_’, and he feels like he has been run through.

A single sob breaks out of him, and the pain bleeds.

His father had been right.

He was a good for nothing failure. 

In his peripheral vision, Lotor is knocked from his misery by the blurry sight of Allura trying to peel herself up from her position on the mat.

“What are you doing?” He swallows, running to support her arms as she staggers to her feet. She wasn’t even really strong enough to stand, but she was stubborn.

“I want to dance with you.” She says determinedly, tapping a command into her vambrace.

A gentle trickle of music fills the silence of the cabin, warming the space between them. He had never danced, at least not in the way Alteans would imagine it. Honestly, he never thought that he would either. He hadn’t envisioned a version of his life where there would be someone wanting to dance with him.

“It’s alright…” She says, reading the expression on his face, “I can’t remember any right now anyway.”

She steadies herself against him, placing her arms around his neck, her feet limply attempting to follow. “You might have to help me.”

Hands on her waist, Lotor draws her in to him. At least she cannot see his tears from here.

“Just hold onto me.”

The music is calming, and that helped. Little tinkling melodies that came and went, interrupted their racing thoughts, if only briefly. Her energy is calm too, he doesn’t know how she can be so calm in the face of death.

“Our first dance.” She grins.

And their last.

Lotor held her body against his as they swayed together, leaning his head against hers as more tears escaped him. He had always known this quintant would come. And yet it still stung more than anything his miserable life had thrown at him. He would give anything to take his actions back, to turn back the course of time just so that they could have had this one dance under a trellis of roses at their wedding. The sensation of her gripping at him for comfort, her unwillingness to let him go so bittersweet.

“I’m, scared you know…”

“It’s alright, Princess.” He soothes her gently. Before he had only ever called her by her title when he was giving her jip. Now it seemed like an honour. “I’ll be with you all the way.”

She sniffs, and Lotor can feel her tears dampening his clothes. “It’s not fair.” She says. She wants to tell him to fight, with fangs and claws bared, to escape the clutches of his fate and be free when she could not, yet she knew that could not be.

“The only time life has been fair to me, was when you came into mine.” He whispers, “And I knew straight away that I could never deserve something so wonderful. I am lucky to have known you, if only for one deca-phoeb, in ten thousand.”

Her lips find his in the darkness, in the wet of their tears combined. It is the truest kiss they have ever shared, and the saddest.

They dance until they can’t anymore.

Lotor sets her down on the mat again, a happy smile on her face, her hand tapping the space beside her, inviting him to join her for one last time.

“Wait…”

Allura watches, perplexed as Lotor and starts using his knife to upheave the flooring again, where she had found that fateful palinka only movements ago. She can’t see what he retrieves from the hiding place, and only gives him a confused look when he kneels at her side and encloses something into the palm of her hand.

“I want you to have this.”

The insulative fibres that existed within the walls of the ship were soft, fine strands of fibreglass. Highly malleable, Lotor once observed a lieutenant felting a handful of it into some highly rude and amusing shapes, much to the entertainment of the crew.

It had taken movements of handiwork with an army knife and his imagination to convince the fibres into some sort of shape. Lotor knew it was ridiculous to have even started it.

“What is it?”

Allura shuffles herself to sit up properly and peers into her hand with suspicious eyebrows. Offered up to her for inspection was, a tiny felt-like creation, no bigger than her own palm, It was curled up as if asleep, but Allura could start to make out the long ears and cotton-tail of a baby rabbit. 

Allura had been weathered for so long, it had all been his fault. Just to see her eyes light up, only for a second, gave him inexplicable joy. That was the princess he remembered.

“He is for you, Princess.”

“You made this?”

Lotor lowered the rabbit into her waiting palms, and Allura peers down at it curiously. It was beautiful, in its way. One ear was distinctly longer than the other, and it was thread-bared in places.

“I wanted to make it up to you.” He begins, uncertainty biting at his lips, “In so many ways, for so many things. This seemed like an appropriate gesture.”

As Allura realises what Lotor has tried to do, its beauty increased one million-fold. Something a million times more precious than any jewel or metal in the treasuries of Altea.

It was like the paperclip rabbit of her childhood, the one that burst into pieces when its magic ran out.

“Oh Lotor!” She says, struck down in fascination and more tears, “He’s beautiful!”

“He can’t collapse, or fall apart.” He says, his ears flattening in an apologetical way, “I had hoped to bespell him for you, I regret that I did not have the time to finish him.”

Allura beams uncontrollably, she may as well have held his beating heart in her hands.

“I had also hoped…” he continues nervously, “To present him as a token, of my intentions. I know we could never have married...”

She closes it in her fingers again, and throws her arms around his neck to kiss him.

“_I’d marry you_…” She whispers between kisses, “_If you asked me; I would say yes_.”

It’s a thoughtless idea, he knows. One full of folly and unreachable dreams. An eventual marriage between them had always been expected, before all this happened, however Lotor had never broached the subject, other than in the most formal of terms. He hadn’t, actually asked her.

Lotor did not know the Altean way to propose marriage. The Galra were required to give extravagant gifts for the female’s consideration, to prove that they could provide. Yet he doubted that Allura would accept gifts, if he had any to give.

“Then I pledge myself to you, Princess Allura of Altea.” He says, red- and puffy-eyed, “If you will have me?”

She starts a little in his arms.

Those words, that Allura had heard far too often in her short life, had never been spoken with truer purpose. 

“I’ll have you.” She sobs, pausing to wipe the tears away, “Emperor Lotor of the Galra.”

Her shaky hands lean on his shoulders to press him back, so that she can lie on him. His fingers tilt her chin up to kiss her, again and again. Her thumbs trace at his cheek bones, and their hearts combust.

Tiredness comes, their kisses fade. Disorientation would come first, but it would be brief. She lies in his arms, on-top of him, as she always has, and he strokes her hair, just as if it were any other night cycle. 

“_Lotor_…” she breathes in the dark, “_I really am scared_.”

“_I’m here_…” he whispers, “_I’ll hold you_.”

He fights the sleepiness. Not just yet.

“_We’ve a little while yet_.” He lies, “_Count back from thirty for me, can you do that? It will help_.” 

She is gone at nineteen.

Only then does Lotor let himself drift away.

* * *


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone, just wanted to say thank you for all the lovely comments and kudos! You guys make me wanna keep writing and your encouragement really does brighten up life in lockdown. 
> 
> The first excerpt of this chapter is actually the very first one I ever wrote for this story, it's kind of where the idea came from, so I'm glad I got this far to be able to use it. Let me know what you think. :)

_“Right boys, time to light this baby up…”_

Light.

It’s too bright. Blinding and spinning.

Where is he?

What is happening?

_“-armed and highly dangerous… -breach the door on five, four, three...”_

Lotor’s chest seizes. The cabin has repressurised, a breeze of fresher air on his skin tells him the airlock has been breached. His brain won’t think, his body won’t obey.

Noise. An explosion, and then it’s as if he were in the middle of an elephant stampede.

Allura.

Something removes her weight from his body, and a vice-like grip heaves at his arm, lifting him upwards and trying to roll him over. Someone pulls his arm up across his back. Where was she?

“Allura!” He roars, as his assailants force his cheek into the floor.

Lotor cannot tell where his strength comes from. A feral snarl rattles in his throat. He can barely see. Blurred shapes of soldiers, humans, heavily armed, all leaning their weight on him, all trying to wrestle him down.

_No_, he wouldn’t let them take her.

His body enters a dissociative frenzy with a terrifying roar. His limbs flail, and he doesn’t care how hard he strikes. Every one of them goes flying. He has no idea how many. But they are humans, weak and small, and every ounce of Galra in his blood boiled.

Suddenly, the world around him is crystal clear. The one with Allura tries to run, Lotor takes out his shins, and the next swift strike to the man’s head knocks him out cold. 

“Allura…” he coughs, pulling her back into his arms and placing a finger to her pulse. She’s so cold, oh but she’s alive, only just. He has to get out of here, get her help.

The moment Lotor stepped out of the wreck of Sincline’s shell, a human tried to rip her from his arms again. Soldiers, droves of them. Lotor held onto her like a limp ragdoll, turning away from them and shielding her with his shoulders from their rescuers. 

Lights shine in his eyes, blinding him completely. Lotor shrinks, curling backwards onto his haunches close to the ground in an attempt to get them away, his lips curling back in a snarl as he clutched her to him. He felt one of them grabbing at his arm, another at his hair, pulling him, pushing him, screaming insults into his ears that he couldn’t hear. He shrugs them off like they were nothing, throwing them off the gang plank. Adrenaline pulsed through his body again, it was fight or flight. His feral urges told him not to give her over at any cost, that he had to protect his mate with his life. Not even his more rational side can bear to be parted from her. If they take her from him, the more vicious part of his brain told him, he would never see her again.

His hand cups her face. Dear _dear _Allura. He has already done enough to her. Hot wet tears splatter onto her cool skin and it takes him ticks to realise that they are falling from him.

There must be six guns trained on him. And countless other combat-trained humans ready for their turn. How was he going to get out of here?

“Stand back you cretins! Get out of my way! Stand down, for Groggery’s sake, put those guns away! You’ll have someone’s eye out with that! Don’t make me come back there!”

A shrill voice calls from the crowd, the only shred of colour fighting its way to the front in an otherwise bland sea of military uniforms. He breaks the front line, and Lotor immediately knows who he is.

The silence in his midst following the echoes of his voice around this very large hangar was eerie enough. Allura’s advisor, Coran stared up at them as if he could bring her back to life with his eyes alone. His face is aghast at the sight of his Princess, all but faded away. As for Lotor clinging to her, wild-eyed and unhinged, that looked as if it were somewhat harder to process. But he swallows the sight back anyway.

“Does… does she live?”

Lotor holds her a little closer, but nods slowly.

Only he does not antagonise the situation, for which Lotor is grateful. He climbs up the gangplank slowly, dropping to his knee just out of Lotor’s striking range, his face solemn.

“Come on now son.” He says gently, leaning his forearm over his knee, “She needs a healing pod and rest.”

It is as if the older Altean is trying to separate a wild animal from its prey.

“You can see her, as soon as she’s in fine fettle again.”

Lotor swallows a lump in his throat. She desperately needs healing. Because he got her into this mess.

“I promise.”

He beckons with his arms, and frozen and cold, Lotor lets him take Allura from him. He regrets it almost the moment he does. His arms feel empty without her, and his heart unbearably full.

Coran backs away, and the moment the distance is safe, Lotor roars in pain as more soldiers twist his arms behind his back and push him to the floor. There is a stinging in his arm.

Lotor stays conscious long enough to realise the bastards had sedated him, before every one of his muscles goes limp, and he remembers no more.

* * *

_“… BP 120/80, heart rate 65, she’s making good progress…”_

Sky.

Blue sky. And birdsong.

Feeling comes back to Allura slowly, like she is gradually being roused up of a cold nothingness of a grave into sunlight. Like it’s somewhere she’s supposed to go.

Her eyes open to a world of calm and clarity, and, she sniffed, hospital-grade cleanliness.

Machines bleep quietly in the background. She waits with tension in her jaw for the hunger pain that will inevitably grip at her stomach, but it does not come.

She’s in a bed, one that’s so soft she feels like she is be swallowed the mattress. Tight orderly sheets are tucked under it, so far so that it suffocates, and she can barely move her legs. A pulse oximeter hangs precariously from her index finger. Someone has washed her hair, and cleaned her body, at least she thinks so. She had got used to the squalor that they had survived in, that by comparison, she felt positively decadent. Everything feels so much fresher, and she’s grateful, but, the scent wasn’t right. It wasn’t hers.

They must have been evacuated, she thinks, the last thing she remembers is his strong embrace as she counted down, and down and into oblivion.

“Lotor?”

His name falls from her lips. His body isn’t next to hers, and the room is even emptier for it. She had sworn to herself many times that she didn’t need a man, but the niggling want for him to be there beside her was unignorable. Not to have her mate here felt – wrong. 

She sees a woman dressed in ugly red disposables note her waking through a glass screen, she presumably went to report on her status. Urgh, Allura ponders. She is malnourished, not infectious. The glass screen made her feel like an animal on show in a zoo.

Medbays were depressing places at the best of times, and this one looks like had taken anti-depressants in an attempt to look jolly. The holo-projector chirps birdsong in the background, a species she didn’t recognise, bright garish murals litter the other walls, they could have been designed by children. The entire ensemble was trying to be something it wasn’t, and it was giving her a headache.

The door to this tiny room opens a dobosh or so later.

“Your Royal Highness.” A dark-haired human woman with a clipboard clutched to her chest descends upon her in a small whirlwind, “We’re so glad to have you back with us. My name is Dr. Bradley, I am in charge of your care.”

She supposed she should acknowledge this doctor, who had saved her life, but the words will not form. How long had it been since she spoke to another living person? She was barely sure that she knew how to anymore.

“Oh.” She manages, after careful consideration, “I am, very much obliged.”

The doctor grins. “You’ve been in our care for a few days. You were in a healing pod, there were severe malnourishment issues that we needed to address, but, the modern technology we have is phenomenal, and you are going to be just fine, if I do say so myself.”

Just then, Allura looks down at her arms, and then to her chest, and legs. She had got used to them all looking so spindly and thin, as much as she had hated to seeing them. Her entire body is fleshed out, back to normal. Just like it had all never happened.

“Where am I?” She asks.

“The IGF Atlas.” The doctor replies proudly, “Welcome aboard.”

“This is an Earth ship?”

“Yep, the best in the business.”

Processing, Allura does not reply, and the doctors continues awkwardly. “I’d like to keep you in for a few more days of monitoring, but after that, you can be discharged. This is Nurse Brenner, if you need anything at all, just holler.”

“Where’s…” she stops herself. She was in a public domain now. Propriety and gentility were key. “What of Emperor Lotor?” She says, wiping the look of confusion from her face for a more regal one, “Naturally I have concerns for his wellbeing.”

One of the nurses immediately breaks out in a snigger, and the others immediately shoot her a death glare.

“I have it on good authority that his health is stable.” The doctor says, “But my priority is you. Get some rest. Ah look, Nurse Brenner has brought you some lunch. We’ll catch up later.”

The small blonde woman clad in red scrubs rolls in a small trolley, and with a whirl of a white coat, the doctor is gone. But whatever is on that trolley does smell amazingly good.

“Hi!” She says, “It’s, um, really nice to finally meet you. You don’t have to call me ‘Nurse Brenner’, by the way, it’s Jeanie, to my friends. I brought you some magazines as well, I can only get them when we land so these are a few months old now, but I always leave the puzzles for the patients to do.”

Almost opening her mouth to introduce herself as Allura, she closes it again. Informalities were pleasant, but not always for the best in the first instance. Jeanie is a blonde, bubbly, walking, talking ray of sunshine. Perhaps more talking than walking. Usually, Allura might have found her boundless optimism irritating, but today, a little sunshine was welcome.

Allura tries to smile a little. “Jeanie – I, fear I am gravely in your debt.”

“Oh no worries!” She shrugs, settling a tray over Allura’s lap, “That’s what we’re here for. Now, I’m afraid this might not be quite what you’re used to.”

“It smells amazing!” Allura beams, and then her face falls again as Jeanie lifts the dome to reveal a tiny portion of what she thought might be mashed potato, if Hunk’s descriptions were anything to go by, a few peas, and some strips of an unidentified meat. Her stomach rumbles.

“Tah-dah! Carte de la medbay!”

“Can I not eat more than this?”

“Your body still needs to get used to being refed.” The nurse explains, “Refeeding too quickly after prolonged periods of starvation can wreak havoc upon the liver. But you can have smaller portions slightly more frequently, if you’d like them.”

“Yes please!” She says, picking up her knife and fork and digging in. It tastes just as good as she thought it would. In fact, it’s rather rich. After a few mouthfuls, she had had enough before she was even halfway through.

“Are you alright?” The nurse asks, using the time to adjust the monitoring equipment.

“It’s, awfully rich.”

“Another down-side of malnourishment I’m afraid. Everything tastes like it came out of the Ritz. This was the blandest thing in the hospital cafeteria, which, I can tell you, has not been in the running for any culinary awards.”

Slowing herself down somewhat, Allura manages to make herself eat the dish, but is more than happy to throw her cutlery down and push the tray back. Jeanie picks up a small remote, and points it at the holoprojector over the wall to her right.

“Now,” says Jeanie, “what would you like? We’ve got birdsong view, cherry orchard, rainforest, city background, er, whale noises…” she pulls a comical face, “yoga retreat, sea breeze…”

“I, quite liked the birdsong.” Allura says meekly, “It reminds me of home.”

Jeanie grins. “Birdsong view it is.” She says, “Erm, some of your things are in that drawer.” She points to the bedside table, which Allura opens to find her armour, cleaned and polished, her suit, dry cleaned, fresh undergarments, and the little brass rabbit.

Suddenly longing to take the rabbit out, Allura stops herself, as if doing so would betray a sign of weakness. She shuts the drawer again.

“Oh!” She clasps her hands together, “Clean underwear! I can’t thank you enough.”

“Hey, anything you want, I’m your girl.”

Allura begins to pick through some of the ‘magazines’ that Jeanie had brought for her. Mind-numbing content mostly, she had no idea how humans could derive entertainment from such things. One little detail though, does catches her eye, and she stares.

Grabbing the magazine, Allura holds it closer to her face. “Jeanie,” she says, “How out-dated did you say these were?”

“Six months tops.” She says, her nose buried in Allura’s chart, “Sorry. I’ll see if I can get you a current digital issue…”

“No that’s not it…” She says, looking at all the other magazines as well, hoping for a printing error.

She knew that time passed differently in the Rift. That had been evident in their last excursion there. She hadn’t ever really thought about just how long that would be in real time. She crumples the magazine in her hands.

“Why did one of the other nurses laugh when I asked after the Emperor’s health?”

“Uh, forgive Laura, Your Royal Highness. It was just, an unexpected way for you to refer to him, that’s all.”

“Why?”

Her voice was cutting, demanding, and Jeanie froze on the spot. 

“Um…” she begins nervously, “Because the Galra Empire is gone. Annihilated by the Voltron Coalition, fifty years ago. It’s in all the history textbooks.” 

“Gone?”

“The Galra are all but extinct. Good riddance I say.”

Allura sits speechless. The machines bleep. Just like that. Gone.

For so many deca-phoebs of her life, Allura had wished such a fate on the Galra for what they had done to her people, her family. Years of bitterness and anger warped into a hatred so deep that she wouldn’t have cared if they had been wiped from existence. She had participated in that termination.

And yet now somehow to hear this brought her nothing but shame.

She swallows. She supposed that, if anything, she could draw the conclusion that he must be alive, and that will be enough to content her for now. “Please let it be known,” she says, “that I wish to see - Prince Lotor as soon as possible.”

Prince, not Emperor. A reversion to his former title was, protocol. He was a prince once more, just as Allura was a princess, and not a queen. For one cannot rule over a world that no longer exists.

“Okay.” She says, “You know, if you ever want to talk..?”

Allura finally finds it within her to give a weak smile. “Thank you. Oh, Jeanie, before you go…” She says, awaiting the nurse’s inevitable judgement, “I wonder, if you might, procure a post-coital contraceptive for me?”

Jeanie doesn’t even look remotely perturbed. “Your healing pod scans were definitive, Your Highness, so was your kit. There is no need.”

Allura breathes a sigh of relief. Thank the Ancients.

“Wait, what do you mean, ‘kit’?”

“It’s standard protocol to run a sexual assault kit in cases like these.” She explains, “The samples are time-sensitive, we didn’t want to lose any evidence if you came around and wanted to press charges…”

She presses her knees together.

Allura breathes, in and out as the information sinks in, “You took a _rape_ kit from me?”

“It really is just a tiny swab and spec exam, nothing you need trouble yourself with.” She says, “We used to see lots of girls that were beaten silly by abusers, without evidence of an assault none of them had any repercussion. We changed the rules so that they could have a voice.”

“But, I’m not a victim! Why would you think that? What need could there possibly be?”

It is blatantly obvious that Jeanie is starting to panic a little. “It’s just standard procedure. You were stranded with him for a long time, the senior medical staff were concerned, for your wellbeing. I honestly wouldn’t worry-”

“I’ll tell you what you should be worrying about.” She cuts right through the nurse like a fresh scalpel blade, “Taking a quiznacking rape kit without my consent. How could you possibly arrive at the conclusion that that was an appropriate thing to do?”

“Please, calm down.”

But Allura is already on a rollercoaster of anger that no one could bring her down from.

“I will not calm down! How dare you violate me like that?! Whose decision was it to do this?”

Tears form at the corners of her eyes. She had to get out of here, find someone she knew. But there was no one.

“Whose, decision, was it?”

Jeanie stands like a startled deer in headlights, “I’m, um, just going to report your concerns to the chief doctor.” She says, before bolting out of the door.

“Perhaps you might have just asked me?” Allura shouted after the woman, even after she had gone. “For your information, he has_ never_ raped me. And he _never _would.” 

* * *

Jeanie closes the door.

“What did she say?” Dr. Bradley asks, waiting outside like a hyena waiting to pounce. It was a lesser-appreciated fact by physicians that patients opened up more to nurses than they did to themselves.

“Not much.” Jeanie says, “As you can see, she’s not happy about the rape kit.”

“Hm. I’ve had girls try to sue me for not taking these samples. She should count herself lucky, she’s been trapped alone with a psychopathic murderer for fifty years, if the sad fuck had raped her any chances she would have had of a prosecution would rely on those results.” She remarks with a sigh, “I’ll mull it over with our professional indemnity insurers anyway. I’ll order her a psychiatric exam, let’s see what Dr. Dekrines has to say.”

“She wants to see him.”

“What?”

Jeanie bites her lip. “She’s asked me to tell you that she wants to see him.”

The doctor sighed, and scratches her head. “That will not be possible. Stall her if she asks again, I’ll see if I can get the Altean ambassador deal with this, intergalactic politics are well above my pay grade.” 

* * *

Allura does not feel like she wants the next meal that Jeanie brings her. They had assumed that Lotor must be guilty of raping her. Just as they would assume his guilt in all matters they charged him with. They could pretend all they liked that it wasn’t because of his Galra blood. She was sure that had the culprit been a human male, that the rape kit would have been considered an enormous waste of time, or worse, got ‘lost’ and never retrieved.

Just thinking about them doing that to her unconscious made her shiver. She felt less safe now than she ever had in Sincline.

So she was not going to stay here.

Flipping her legs from the ridiculously soft bed that she was trying not to sink into, Allura opens the drawer and pulls out her clothes. She felt fine, she reasoned, she had certainly felt far worse. She was going to find somebody in charge and deal with this mess. And find Lotor.

She has just about put together her ensemble, when there is a knock on the door.

“Your Royal Highness – what are you doing out of bed?”

“I’m leaving.” She says, “And you won’t be stopping me.”

“Actually I do have the authority to…”

“That was not a request, Jeanie.” Allura says tiredly, securing her left boot. She knows that on the Atlas, she has no jurisdiction, and no legal right to give anyone orders. She simply hoped that Jeanie might not know this.

The poor girl is shellshocked by now. “But the Altean ambassador is here to see you.” She says, “If you’re ready?”

She takes a deep breath. This was life. She would have to handle it. “Fine.” She replies, “Show them in.”

Jeanie steps back with a subtle smile, and holds the door back for her visitor. Fifty years on, she thinks, humans barely live that long.

For the first time in phoebs, Allura could not believe her luck.

Coran holds his composure at first, just until the nurse closes the door, then his eyes start to stream rivers.

“My little quiffle…” he squeaks, his voice hitting a higher note than she had ever heard before.

Oh thank every deity in the Cosmos! Allura couldn’t remember a time when she had been so very happy to see another face. Just for a moment, she felt six deca-phoebs old again, unladen with responsibilities, tripping over her skirts to run to the man who raised her. All of her doubts fizzled away into nothing with a big wide smile. If Coran was here, and he believed in her, still recognised her as a princess, even if the planet was long gone, then it seemed that she would be in with a chance of a reasonable diplomatic conversation with these humans. 

Somehow, she knew that everything was going to be alright now.

“Oh Coran!” She hurls herself into his arms from her tippy-toes, “Coran! I’ve missed you so much!”

“I just, can’t believe you’re here!” He bawls into her collar, “I thought you were dead for fifty deca-phoebs, we all did!” He leans back a little to wipe a tear from her cheek, “I’m so glad you’re alright.”

She draws him into another tight hug. “I thought I was going to die…” she cries.

“There there, Princess.” He says, stroking her hair absent-mindedly, “All’s well that ends well.”

“How did you find us?”

“Three phoebs ago, your DNA signatures registered on the Atlas ship’s systems. Naturally everybody thought it was a mistake, but, I pulled some strings. I had to follow the trail just to be sure!”

“You saved our lives!” She says, “Coran you have no idea!”

Allura reaches for a box of tissues on her bedside table and places it in her lap while he perches beside her. She is going to have a lot of use for these now.

The subject the nurse so carelessly dropped into conversation irked at her conscience. Her stomach turned simply at the thought of it. She was going to have to tell Coran, if she wanted anything to be done about it. It was an unthinkable insult, not only to her, but to the entire Coalition she represented.

Keeping these things secret did no good, she knew, and yet the thought of telling him made her feel sick. The man who raised her – she couldn’t. It was too obscene. It would worry him beyond any benefit. No, she thinks, not yet. Anything but that now. This was a happy moment, and she was determined not to let it be marred by some human fuck-up.

“There’s so much to catch you up on, I don’t even know where to start.”

“What happened?” She asks, demolishing her way through two tissues and finally deciding to bring up the less tasteful subject at a time when they were both less emotional, “The paladins? Voltron? The nurse said that the Galra Empire was extinct!”

Coran gives her hand a squeeze. How to even begin to explain fifty deca-phoebs of history?

“After…” He pauses, “After you jumped, Keith took the decision to withdraw from the Rift. Voltron was breaking up, it was too dangerous for them to stay. He decided that the best course of action was the close the tears in the Rift. We sacrificed the Castle-ship to do it. I didn’t care about the Castle, I begged him to go back for you.” Coran says, eyes red and puffy, “I pleaded, he wouldn’t do it.”

Ugly memories of his knees scuffing the floor come to mind. The decision had not rested easy on Keith’s conscience, everybody had known that. Lotor made a choice, he had told them, and so had Allura. He wasn’t willing to risk four lives for two, not even for Allura. She could hardly say that she blamed him. The decision she made was hers and hers alone. And yet, the smallest feeling of hollowness resounded. They had left her to die, much the same way they had decided to leave Lotor.

“I tried for deca-phoebs, but I couldn’t forgive him.” He says, “I knew why he did it. But things were never the same between us again.”

Allura’s eyes catch an old photograph, sitting in a wooden frame in the corner. Leaning to reach it, Allura peers into the glass. Five smiles stare up back at her. They were all older, wearier, but they were them, none the less. And, there was…

“Romelle flew Blue…” her fingers trace at their outlines, “After I was gone.”

“We were all convinced Voltron would never fly again without you, Princess. No one could fill your shoes and the paladins knew that. But Blue did choose again, and chose a brave and valiant paladin in Romelle.” He says wistfully “The truth is, we wouldn’t have been able to win the war without her.”

She shrugs the knowledge from her shoulders, as if it does not bother her. It should not bother her. Romelle had been as much in the dark about Lotor’s motivations as any of them had been.

“Sendak took over the moment Lotor’s death was announced.” Coran continues, “And from that moment on, the war became so much worse. He was every bit as responsible for the extinction of the Galra as we were. The Coalition came out on top in the end, but the victory was hollow. It was the single biggest loss of life the universe has ever seen.”

“Extinction…” She murmurs, lamenting her own part in the annihilation of an entire species.

“A few Galra survive, mostly ex-Blades. The universe ostracised them after that. You don’t see then at all now.”

A few left to survive in exile like dogs. A deca-phoeb ago, Allura did not think that she would have much cared. Now though, now it made her nothing but ashamed that she had ever thought that way.

“They all look so happy…” She says, trying to push the less pleasant thoughts from her mind, “Where are they now?”

“On Earth, mostly. Although Romelle returned to her family on New Altea. Keith is the senior-most Atlas commander now, he is aboard somewhere. Shiro held that post until he retired ten deca-phoebs ago. Humans don’t really live that long at all, when you think about it.”

“And the others?”

“Um,” Coran bites his lip, “Hunk died, Princess…” he explains, “Of a heart condition. I attended his funeral last deca-phoeb. And Pidge is battling cancer… But Lance is as fit as a fiddle, I believe.”

The sound of their laughter echoes around her memory, leaving nothing but a bitter empty taste in her mouth. Time was so very cruel. Friends and comrades, no, she thinks, more than that. Family, wilting and withering away. 

“Can I see them?” She says quickly, fingers tapping impatiently at the frame.

“I believe that Keith may have already arranged it.”

Allura relaxes into a relieved smile. “I’d like that.”

“They’ll be so excited. It’s not every day one of your own comes back from the dead. Figuratively at least.”

The tiniest twitch of his moustache betrayed the burning question that Coran had been longing to ask since she returned. He had hoped that she might trust him enough to offer the information, then again, he knew that young ladies hardly discussed these things with their elders at the best of times. Coran shakes his head internally. ‘_She isn’t your daughter’_, he tells himself, ‘_don’t go poking your nose where it’s not wanted_.’

But, if Lotor has hurt her, in any way, Coran would throttle the whelp to death himself. 

“You know, when your father asked me to go into stasis with you, I wondered if I would ever wake up. We could have been found by someone far less harmless, after all. And when I did, well, I couldn’t believe my luck. I thought that was it, I couldn’t possibly have any more luck left. Then I saw you come off that ship.” He says, “And, I thought to myself Coran, it isn’t possible that you could be so lucky twice in one lifetime.” He gives her a nervous smile, “I have to say, in that moment it looked for all the worlds as if Lotor really did care for you.”

Allura presses a tissue at her face to wipe the fresh wave of sobs that streamed.

“Quiffle…” He says, distraught, “What’s wrong?”

Blood gushed from a wound in her heart, so cleanly cut that it barely hurt, leaving her a numb shell. This was it, the day she knew was always coming. The day that she lost him for good.

“He does care for me Coran.” She sniffs, “Very much.”

“Princess…”

She holds up a hand to quiet him.

“And I, care for him very much too.”

Coran draws in air through his nose in such a way that he might had he smelled something terrible, yet was too polite to say, the stiffening in his spine protective.

“Please don’t look like that.” She says, “For if I can’t tell you I’m sure I’ll never be able to tell another soul.”

He comforts her with a rub of her back. “It’s just a little unexpected, is all.” He says exasperated, “You were ready to gut him like a fish.”

“I was.” She whispers, “Then Keith gave orders to leave him in the Rift.” Her hand curls into the duvet at her side, “I couldn’t leave him there to die. I didn’t know if it was right, or wrong. I jumped from the blue lion to save him that day because I loved him.”

Coran’s fist tightens in his lap. He had feared as much.

“That’s an awful lot from him to live up to, Quiffle.” He says unsurely, “Does he deserve it? Many lie dead at his hand.”

“Many live on at his hand too.” She says, “He wants peace. I know it, I can feel it in his aura. Just as I know he loves me.” She shrugs a little to console herself, “Listen to me. People are going to think I’ve gone nuts.”

Over the deca-phoebs, Coran had learned to absorb Allura’s words like a sponge. She was special, like her father and all previous rulers of Altea. She knew things others could not, feel things others had no concept of. He had seen her do incredible things. Her power could be quite something to behold. If she was able to trust Lotor, Coran knew that he didn’t need to understand why.

A reassuring hand grips at her shoulder. “I trust in you, Allura.” He says, “And I’ve always known you knew your own mind. Ever since you used to get into fights with the kitchen boys. If you are sure, then I’d not doubt it for a second.”

She grins at him thankfully. “Is he alright?” She asks, “No one will tell me anything.”

Coran pulls a face. “As you might expect,” he says, “Lotor was not exactly welcomed with open arms. It seems human prejudice against the Galra runs deep after their brief occupation. I believe a little diplomatic intervention might not go amiss.”

A small flash of a determined smirk pulls at her lips.

“I think you might be right.”

* * *


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew, work went crazy, then I had no idea how I was going to put this all together, then suddenly I had too much content for one chapter. Hope you all like it.

* * *

Lotor chuckles darkly.

The sergeant has a pitiful jab, and an even poorer cross. His stiff and angry scowl was hardly a compensation for his terrible boxing technique, or for anything else, Lotor adds. Yet, he supposes, it could be worse. If it were a full Galra punching him, his face would be a mangled mess by now. 

These humans dress in a sea of green khaki and camouflage, in a guise resembling that of a military operation, possibly in the hope that if they all look identical then no one of them will stand out as being particularly incompetent. He ponders which war they are fighting, or perhaps if they were fighting a war at all. Wartime did not leave this much spare time for infantrymen to use prisoners for punchbags.

Verbal communications have been lacking, Lotor laments, and it is such a shame. All the information he could have, or give, and they treat him like a punchbag all the same.

A panging sensation rattles in his chest at the thought of her, that Lotor could only identify as _pining_. He daren’t ask after Allura, as much as he wanted to. He didn’t need to give them a weakness to exploit. He would have to trust that they might treat her a little better. He can only assume that she is alive, or by now he would probably have been charged with her murder, and for now, that knowledge will have to be enough.

Humans seem to like to set the scene, he notes. The lights are unnaturally bright, and set to shine straight into his eyes. The room is plain and bare, his chair, so kindly arranged at centre stage, is bolted to the floor.

When he woke up, his arms had been locked behind his back, at the elbows instead of the wrists, meaning there was no way he could contort his musculature to get his arms over his head. He wrinkled his nose. He would not get out of here by force, or at least not from where he sat now. He was used to being a hybrid enigma. Nobody had ever known quite what to expect from Lotor physically, and it was an advantage he had learned to exploit early on. He was only a little taller than the humans, and while perhaps he wasn’t stronger than the metal they had him restrained in, it wouldn’t be beneficial for them to know just what he could do. Not yet.

He sighs. It would not be the first time he had charmed his way out of a jail cell.

Bruises have started to form on his skin where the metal cut into his arms and legs, shackles that could be pulled taut and locked in place, to hold him to the chair. When he refuses to comply, they simply pull them tighter, until pain bites at his shoulders and hips.

“I’ve been met with worse hospitality.” He says nonchalantly, “Whatever information you want from me, you may as well be frank about it. Otherwise we’re both just wasting our time.”

It looks like he cannot even believe that Lotor is speaking to him, much less with decorum.

The man grins sardonically. “You’ll be having plenty more time to waste away where you’re going, believe me.” He says, wiping the blood from his knuckles with a towel, “Commander’s curious, sent me and the boys down to have a little word with you before we ship you off to Fort Deniston.”

“And somehow, I have yet to hear any such ‘little words’.” He says with a dark frown, “What do you want?” 

“Alright then.” The sergeant slaps his paperwork down onto the table, his overly heavy boots thudding over the floor, “Two-thousand, one hundred and ninety-two. Does this number ring a bell?”

It was a number well-engraved on Lotor’s conscience, but he was not about to say so.

“That was the total number of bodies retrieved from a small subsidiary moon, known only as Colony Two, after the downfall of the Galra Empire. Thing is,” he says, “We know exactly what you did. Your little concentration camp scheme. What the boys and I can’t figure out is, is what a jumped-up little dictator with daddy issues would do, with the quintessence of two-thousand one hundred and ninety-two dead Alteans?”

“Aren’t such things usually best left in the past? You hardly need the details.” He considers, “I can only assume there must be some information that I have that is valuable to you specifically. I’d be dead by now otherwise, surely?”

He needs to lead them on, and say as little as possible. Once he has worked out what they need to hear, or rather want to hear, they will be putty in his hands.

“Come now. We are all opportunists in war, are we not? You need information. I need time. I am a man completely without allegiance, or morality. Ask away.”

He folds his arms menacingly across his chest. “Large amounts of quintessence like that don’t just go poof, into thin air.” The sergeant says, appearing to ignore him, “We know you stashed it away for a rainy day. Tell us where, and we’ll negotiate a reduced sentence for you. Simple.” 

His eyes twitches, his nostrils flare. He’s lying. Lotor’s eyes narrow. When something is too good to be true, it is. No. They want something. Something they were rather desperate to get out of him before their competitors did. He decides to offer them a hook.

“What makes you think that I’ve preserved it in its raw form, when it has so many uses pertinent to my war effort?”

The sergeant’s eye twitches. _‘Got you’_, Lotor thinks. People could say so much, without saying anything at all. Lotor enjoyed watching them crack, without even knowing it, piece by piece. All he had to do was feed them their desires, and watch as they tripped over themselves.

They think he has a weapon, of some description. That was it. Hidden away for when he needed it most. That would make sense. Although Lotor preferred to hide his weapons in plain sight.

If this is a peacetime, then what use do the humans have for weapons? Lotor knew that they liked to threaten each other, for no particular reason, and that conflict between regions was common, Allura had explained it to him once.

He is twiddling with a button in his thumbs, unsure quite what to do with it, and Lotor continues regardless.

“My father had ion cannons that could take out entire civilisations. He prided himself on ruling a desolated universe. I’ve always thought that rather boring. But to rule over people, that takes something a little different. Instead of threatening to destroy them, you make them dependent on you for the most basic of things. Water, food, amenities, the things they come to take for granted. They wonder how they ever got by without you, their great leader. All it takes is a little injection of quintessence, and you can watch an empire unfold.”

A door opens then, and several soldiers stand to attention for a corporal, who relinquishes the button from the sergeant. “_Stand easy_,” he hears, along with; “_I know an interrogation going south when I see one, Sergeant!_” The corporal, ever gruffer and moodier than the sergeant, peers down at Lotor over a long hairy nose.

Lotor straightens his back, and stares back. His mind races behind a calm mask. At least, he hoped, that if he offered them something, or implied that he had something, they would not be inclined to kill him.

Death was preferable to imprisonment, if they killed him it would be a reprieve. He should just provoke them and get it over with. Instead, the will to live seized at him like never before.

He needed to see her again.

Shrugging to himself, the corporal presses the button, and Lotor screams as electricity rips through his nervous system. His body contorts, ligaments avulsing from bone where the shackles held his limbs in place. He can feel the flesh at his elbows burning where the metal made contact. Oh holy Feyiv that did _hurt_. 

When it stops, Lotor hangs limp like a ragdoll, dragging air in and out of his starving lungs.

“This rudimentary invention was developed after the occupation, for this very reason.” The corporal says, gesturing at Lotor’s bound elbows, “We held a large number of Galra prisoners here, and never once did we have, compliance issues.”

Heaving against his restraints, Lotor realises that he has bitten his lip, and deliberately spits the blood as far as he can.

“I’m glad to see it is just as effective against hybrids.” The square-looking man seats himself opposite Lotor to glare at him while he shook uncontrollably, “Now I want you to think very carefully before you speak.” He says, “Because my patience is wearing thin.”

Let him think he is in control, Lotor thinks. It will buy some time. 

“What did you do with it?”

Lotor’s throat contracts as another shock hurtles through his system. This was humiliation, and Lotor was more than familiar with it.

“Our teams are closing in on this little nest egg that you’ve gathered for yourself. You could save yourself the trouble of further interrogation.”

Two further shocks, and Lotor is trembling in his seat, the stress of his limbs being pulled behind him starting to fray at his will. With each breath, Lotor could feel his alchemic power riling inside him, like a hurricane longing to be let loose. He carefully swallows it back down. He had done it countless times before, but then his energy was no longer being consumed by the Sincline ship, and Lotor had not known raw power like this, not since Allura siphoned his last outburst.

He could free himself, so easily, all he had to do was let it slip. He could snap that bastard’s neck. No, he thought, revealing one’s hand prematurely could do no good.

It hurts. But Lotor is used to pain. And Lotor will tell them nothing.

* * *

To Allura’s relief, the Atlas unlocks a guest suite for her that very afternoon.

It’s empty, blander, and far smaller than her room on the Castle, but in comparison to Sincline, it was relative luxury. Allura leans back against her chair with a sigh. There is nothing to be getting on with, no plans to review, no meetings to rehearse for. She is unrequired. Obsolete. And for the first time in a while, monotony was beginning to seep into her brain.

And every time that it did, Allura could not help but think of Lotor.

No one had been able to tell her where he was, or give her clearance to meet with him. Applying pressure had not exactly been working either. People whirred around her with gestures and tokens of appreciation, but the truth was that her status simply did not carry the clout it once had.

Not even Keith, who she was assured was on board, had managed to make the time for her, and, she thought, it would be a lie to claim that that did not sting a little.

It felt empty, to sit in one of the nicest rooms in the ship, while Lotor slept in a prison cell. She missed the touch of his hand, and the warmth of his voice.

Allura had to try not to think about it all too much. The moment she did, the thought of him never being free again, never with her, or holding her while she fell asleep, ground her heart into tiny pieces.

It felt wrong.

And yet she had known for so long that this is how it would be.

Despair clawed at her innards. _Ancients _she missed him so badly. Her brain begins to entertain a notion whereby there was a quiet knock at the door. He would be there when she opened it, why or how did not matter in the slightest. He would be there, and they would collide into a snug embrace the moment the door clicked shut. She would hold him like she would never let him go, and he would kiss her tears away only to shed his own.

_‘I love you, Princess.’_ He would say, and she would bawl all the more.

_‘I love you...’_ She would sob into his shoulder, completely unwilling to let this fantasy of him fade, _‘I’ll fight for you, I promise.’_

He opens his mouth to answer, yet no sound comes out. He is speechless, even in her mind.

She cannot fight for him. To fight for him was treason to the people she was sworn to serve. The scarless skin of her arms where she had slashed deep into her own flesh to unburden herself of their pain tingled, the only reminder of what she had felt when she made the cuts. That burden was hers, and she had had enough of it, wanting to let it flow red with her cares and worries down a washroom drain.

If the truth be told, the real truth; Allura knew that if she could shirk the responsibilities of her birth outright, she would find a way to break him out of prison and run away with him and never look back.

They were hiding something from her, she knew it. They didn’t want her to know what they had done to him. She wondered if they were waiting for her to insist, to reveal to them just how much of a nutjob she had become trapped in the Rift. Her fingers curl into a fist. She would find out what they had done with him, and she would do it without drawing the slightest bit of wayward attention to herself.

A real knock on the door startles Allura from her imagination, and prompts her to wipe aberrant tears from her cheeks.

“Come in.”

The latch clicks, and Coran nudges at the door with his shoulder, pushing it back as far as it would go to make room for the large crate that he was trying to wheel in with him.

“What on Earth is that?” She asks, as he finally manages to close the door behind him.

“I did inform that we are to dress for the occasion, did I not, Princess?” He says, tapping the tall dark crate with a gloved hand.

Coran had informed her earlier in the day that they were cordially invited to dinner. She hadn’t so much as given a thought to what she would be wearing.

“I had a few things sent over that I thought you might like, I hope your taste hasn’t changed too much.”

“All this, just for garments?”

“What have I always told you?” He says, unflicking the crate’s catches, “Diplomacy is all about one’s appearance.”

“If you’re a woman.” She adds drily. 

“If you’re a woman.” He concedes, “And I thought you could do with some battle armour. State colours only, of course.”

Coran pulls out various items from the crate and hangs them on the front of the wardrobe, which, ironically, wasn’t built with the specifications for Altean evening gowns. Allura plucks them off the wardrobe as quickly as he hangs them to inspect each one.

Allura had never been a fan of poofiness in skirts, although she knows for a fact that Coran loves it, and will never cease to push those sorts of pieces her way. And she won’t indulge him, not even this once.

“Both literal and figurative, I see.”

He’s brought her a fresh flight suit, that caught her eye in its relative simplicity. It’s white, with a slight pearlescent finish, with fine plates of gold metal on the shoulders and forearms. Panels of pink and turquoise with gold trim, bright and strong, the ‘V’ shape across the shape as proud as it had always been.

“However I don’t see why you shouldn’t look fabulous to meet tonight’s guest. This wasn’t the only thing I had shipped in from New Altea, you know.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean, young lady, that the First Minister of New Altea came in on the same consignment. He wanted to meet you straight away when he arrived, I said absolutely not.”

“I would have actually quite liked a private audience with him.”

“That is the purpose of tonight’s dinner.” Coran says, “Just you, he, and I. To discuss how we all move forward in this new world.”

“What is the protocol here?” She sighs, “Am I a princess? Am I not? Does he bow for me or do I for him? Does he sit first, or do I?”

“You are a princess of Old Altea, and nothing can change that. He is a politician, Quiffle. Nothing more. He bows.” He says, “But this is New Altea, and he will treat you like a foreign dignitary until New Altea either accepts you or denounces you as such. Now, you have to get dressed.”

“Coran, I’m not a little girl whose world revolves around dresses-” He pulls out another ensemble, and Allura’s previous resistance whittles away, “Oh - that, is, stunning.”

She takes this one right out of his hands, her fingers wander over the fabric. Smooth and soft to the touch, it is turquoise blue in colour. Sleeves of the finest lace in threads of silver wind down towards the wrists, with the typical Altean cape to the mid arm, this one with gold plates at the shoulders, not unlike the flight suit. The bodice is embroidered and beaded in exquisite patterns, draping lazily into the skirt. Feeling like a little girl, Allura pinches the hanger under her chin and poses in front of the mirror. 

“Yes, and they aren’t little boys whose worlds revolve around pretty women.”

Allura isn’t listening, instead she is far too engorged in the beauty of the gown. It takes a moment for her to notice his jerking eyebrow.

“Don’t judge me.” She says, stroking at the silkiness of it, “I’m allowed a little weakness, aren’t I?”

How she would love for Lotor to be able to see her in this. She could just imagine his eyes widening at the sight of her.

“Of course you are.” He says, shaking his head, “How did I know you were going to pick that one?”

“Coran,” she says, placing the dress carefully upon the bed, “You are going to do my hair, aren’t you?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

She pulls it out of her bun and shakes it around her shoulders, hoping that they can do something with it, it seemed to have become rather sculpted at the back of her head.

“Oh my word…” he grumbles, “where do I even start?”

“So what do I need to know about the First Minister?” She says, seating herself in front of the mirror. Of all the qustions she could have asked, about New Altea, or her people, for now, this had to be the most pertinent one.

“His name is Iliyor, Princess. He is the leader of a faction elected to form government, that is what has now become known as the ‘High Circle’. First Ministers spend terms of ten deca-phoebs in power, and I believe that he is due to stand for re-election later in the season.”

She pinches at the whisps of her hair. “Is he likely to win?”

“No. He’s a competent enough a leader alright, but his faction have fallen out of favour over the deca-phoebs, mostly over their taxation rates; painful if I do say so myself.”

“I see.” She says, “And what does he stand to gain through a meeting with me?”

“Little has been made of your reappearance, especially by the humans, and that is quite deliberate, I might add. On New Altea it will be revolutionary, and everyone knows it. He will seek to influence you. Indeed, I imagine he thinks that a marriage to you would cement his power permanently.”

Her face is one of disgust. Was the thought of that quite so ghastly? Allura had always been rather pragmatic about her future before.

No, Coran thinks. She is thinking about the man she wishes to marry instead.

“I can’t deny that I’m looking forward to Iliyor’s presence.” He continues, “He’s a person they really cannot afford to offend, I hope only that he can get some answers.”

“I am a person they really cannot afford to offend.” She quips, “I shall get some answers. Whether I have to wear a ballgown or not. It is important now to set the stage for the movements ahead. If I can convince the new order of my status, I can negotiate better terms-”

Now it is Coran’s turn to frown, and she can see it in her vanity mirror.

“Do you really think you can turn Lotor’s public image around on a whim?” He asks, “The Altean people may not know what happened, but there’s plenty out there that do. And they won’t want to turn a blind eye.”

“I don’t expect that.” She sighs, “I just, don’t want him to suffer.”

“You’re going to have to pull a rabbit out of the hat there.” He says, returning his attention to her hair.

“Coran, when Prince Charlian married Camille Porker-Busstrutt, he went from being the man who essentially murdered his wife, to the man who had been in love with another for years and just wanted to be happy. Spin is a powerful thing.”

“That was a marital affair Princess, this is murder.” He rolls his eyes and concedes when her stern gaze flickers, “I know, I know.”

“I have to try. I owe him that.”

“Princess, make sure you try to keep that appointment with the psychiatrist.” He says softly, “You’ve been through so much, it would be good for someone to help you process it.”

“I’m going this evening before dinner.” She says with a roll of her eyes, “In a show of good faith. It’s the only time he could squeeze me in.”

* * *

They have been at this for two vargas now, and the corporal is becoming bored. He kicks his feet up onto the desk, and reclines back, like he has all the time in the world, but his expression says otherwise.

Lotor barely cared beyond the pain of his limbs being pulled behind him with agonising force now.

So he began to try a new tactic. Nothing he said or asked him irked Lotor particularly, but his next suggestion worked its way under his skin like a charm.

“I suppose you must have given up any hope of seeing the Altean princess again?” He says, with a sideways glance to his unmoving underlings. “She must have detested you.”

He is watching for a response from Lotor, a twitch, or a look, something to confirm his suspicions.

“After all that time you spent trying to crawl into her knickers, her rejection must have been rough. Not that that ever deterred a Galra.”

All illusions of decorum and dignity were long lost on Lotor now. “_What?_” He snarls, his voice barely there after uncountable numbers of shocks.

Come on,” the sergeant goaded him loudly, resting his over-large hands over the back of his neck, “Just between us men. She’s a beautiful woman. It’s hot when they put up a fight isn’t it? Don’t worry. When New Altea falls, we’ll let you watch while the boys have a turn with her.”

His arms wrenched agonisingly against his firm restraints with a fit of rage he could barely contain. He knows it’s goading, he shouldn’t let it bother him, but it does, it burns white inside him, and he was ready to tear these humans limb from limb.

Something struck him then. Nothing would ever change. He knew that with every scream he bit back. He’d go down in history as a Galra hybrid monster, to be prodded and goaded and leered at, who never so much as cared about the people he destroyed.

* * *


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Allura does a Daenerys, or a Jean Grey, or something. I've been listening to The Chainsmokers' song "This Feeling" a lot whilst writing this, it seems to fit with this story pretty well. Hope you enjoy.

* * *

A varga or so later, hair done and adorning her new suit, she knocks on the door of the psychiatrist’s office. A clean-cut greying man of small stature opens the door, and immediately looks far happier to see Allura than Allura is to see him.

“Your Royal Highness, you look a picture, it’s an absolute honour! Take a seat, take a seat.”

He shuffles her into his office, a far grander affair than any of the others she had been in so far, and the only one to be adorned with bookshelves, of all things. She had thought that such things must be obsolete on spaceships, but it did give the place a certain comforting charm. Perhaps that was the point, she thought, to lull unsuspecting patients into a false sense of security.

Allura began to wonder exactly why humans required mental health professionals on board their ships, or why they sat in white coats across grand mahogany desks. Allura has been given a small chair to perch on, one that is far smaller than the desk itself. It’s all off, she grumbles internally, their eye-level isn’t the same. It was hardly a good start.

“You’re too kind.” She says, knowing he is referring to her hair, “I haven’t had a lot of time lately, and well, needs must.”

“Naturally!” he says, settling into his chair and organising his paperwork, “I’d like to be able to use your first name during this consultation. Would that be okay?”

Allura crosses her ankles, and places her hands together in her lap. She cannot rest upon her laurels now. This was no time to allow the misapprehension that she was anything other than a potential political adversary.

“In a social setting, ‘Princess’ is more than acceptable.”

“Ah, whatever you are most comfortable with works for me.” He says, pushing his glasses up his nose with a sniff, “So,” he claps his hands together, “The marvels of modern technology eh? How’ve you been feeling?”

“Fine.” She says. A little overwhelmed, but now was hardly the time to say it, “It’s lovely to eat something that isn’t a ration bar.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“Doctor,” Allura crosses one leg over the other and folds her arms, “forgive me, but I really do not see the need for this appointment, and I’m reluctant to waste your valuable time.”

Doctor Dekrines, however, seems to have nothing better to do today.

He taps his fingertips together. “People who are thrown into survival situations often close down mentally, the brain adapts to the necessity to carry on because it has no other choice. It’s important for us to support you in your readjustment back to normal life, you know, talk it all out.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call my life normal.”

“I daresay not, you’ll be well-versed in how to suppress your feelings.” He says with a tilt of an eyebrow, “Do not think me presumptuous, it’s a well-documented in royalty, and those who live very public lives. Your life isn’t your own, and the level of emotional mastery we see in these cases is quite astonishing.” He says, “But that doesn’t mean that you don’t have your own very valid thoughts and emotions that have been squandered by this ordeal.”

“Yes, well, I…” she flusters, pulling at her collar for air. She was always putting her own feelings aside for the good of her people, or the Coalition, or Voltron, the may deca-phoebs had dragged, until Allura had not truly known what she had wanted anymore. She had even resigned herself to some abominable fates, a political, loveless marriage, probably, and child-bearing, of course. Neither things she ever wished to do.

_Bloody Lotor_, she thinks to herself. It would have been easier to stay on that path, than to listen to his whispered promises of love, and forgoing children, if she did not want them, reminding her of the self-worth she knew she had, but just couldn’t quite externalise. Those simple words had the power to bring her entire legacy to its knees.

“I suppose that’s all by-the-by now.” She says.

“Your fear, your trepidation, all your doubts, those are all legitimate Princess, and you should not brush them under the carpet.”

And what about love, she wonders? People were quite happy for her to forget that _that _had ever happened.

“Let’s start from the beginning.” He says, “How did you end up in the Sincline ship in the first place?”

“I-” she swallows, memories flood back to her, of alarms blaring and smoke, and hobbling out of the main cockpit towards the lower compartment, “I didn’t think, I couldn’t just leave him there.”

Allura is struck by the fact that she does not, exactly, remember everything that happened. There were bits and bobs, flashes, the muffed sound of his voice, but she had no idea how she had gotten from A to B, or how she had come to wake up in Sincline quintants later.

“Why?”

She sighs. “He had valuable information.” He doesn’t pry, “I was angry, frustrated, I’d hit my head rather badly.” She says, after choosing her words with sone consideration, “To be honest, I hadn’t imagined a situation in which my extraction of Prince Lotor would go so badly wrong.” Her hand scrunches in her lap, “It was a wake-up call, that I wasn’t invincible.”

“Nobody is invincible.”

“No, I,” She pushes her annoyance back down into her stomach, “My father,” she swallows, “he was proof of that. I wanted others to think that I was a competent leader, so that was how I comported myself. After a while, it just became normal.”

“Were you frightened?”

“Of the potential outcomes, yes, but not really, at least not initially.”

“Even trapped alongside Prince Lotor?”

Allura inhales sharply. “Especially not trapped alongside Prince Lotor, Dr. Dekrines.” She says, “I have never possessed any fear of the prince, not even when he stood on the opposite side of the battlefield. Fear is an unnecessary and unproductive preoccupation.”

The doctor gives her a friendly smile. “You must be very brave.”

“I’m an experienced pilot. I’ve been trained not to panic in dire situations.”

All Allura really notices is his frown, his nonchalance as he picks up what appears to be a large paperweight, and brings it down against the desk surface with a piercing thud, causing Allura to jump out of her skin.

“_Ancients!_” She grits her teeth against her racing pulse and the sting of shock, “What did you do that for?”

Demonstrating that your overwhelming strength does not in fact, make you alright, Princess.” He says, “It’s alright to not be alright.”

“Safe in the knowledge that one will be alright.” She says, “I had some time to think about myself for once, and not what people were demanding of me. It certainly was awful is some ways, and quite therapeutic in others.”

Now, time for herself was a luxury she simply would not have.

“Have you tried to rebuild any friendships?”

Over her entire lifespan, Allura could only count the friends she had made on her hands alone.

“Well, with Coran, it’s like I was never gone.” She says, “But, Commanders Kogane and Shirogane, they were dear friends, and they do not seem to wish to rebuild a relationship with me.”

“Sometimes people just don’t know how to approach those who have undergone things like this.” He says, “I’ll encourage them to speak to you. In the meantime, reach out to them a little, they need to know you’ll be accepting of their friendship.” 

“I’ll try.” She says, “The other paladins are coming to see me soon. I’m looking forward to life getting back to normal as quickly as possible.”

“And what sort of relationship did you develop with Prince Lotor?” He asks, “In your time with us, I understand you have asked to see him several times.”

Allura blinks. “It may be little of your business Doctor, but the prince and I had an established relationship long before we ever got ourselves stranded in the Quintessence Field. It was certainly tumultuous, but we came to rely upon one another to stay alive. I hold him in high regard and I know he does the same for me.”

“Actually, in your situation that’s quite normal. We enter a cognitive state where the only thing that matters is survival, and our brains adapt to accommodate that.”

She rolls her eyes. “You make it sound like a bad marriage.”

The doctor laughs. “Indeed. As entertaining as that may seem, it’s a fairly accurate analogy. Princess, I can assure you,” he says, “that your feelings are the most natural in the world.”

A sigh of relief settles in Allura’s chest. Perhaps talking this through wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

“Over the coming weeks, I’m going to help you untangle yourself from him emotionally. That doesn’t mean that you have to renounce your emotions, it will just help you to navigate the world more independently of them. It can be quite daunting, and right now it will feel like the wrongest thing in the world, but things will improve.”

Allura considers for a moment. She has been thinking about Lotor an awful lot, when there were other very important things to consider. Perhaps it would be good to clear her head, and apply herself to other things. It wouldn’t mean that she cared about him any less.

“I’ve been told by the brigadier general that I’m allowed to escort you to visit him, would that be agreeable.”

Her heart leaps. “Oh yes! That would be quite agreeable.”

* * *

The doctor guides through a labyrinth of tiny corridors, only getting narrower and more cramped each deck down they went. Some give her some mild form of acknowledgement as he passes, and others do not. She barely cares. She needs to know he is alright. If she can determine this, then she will finally be able to go to this dinner with her mind at ease. 

He shows her into a viewing gallery. “It’s a one-way window, I think.” The doctor explains, “I’m afraid a face-to-face meeting won’t be possible.”

“I will be demanding a face-to-face meeting with him, but this will do for now. Thank you Doctor.” She says, clasping her hands in front of her, and waiting patiently. She would take it, and wait.

Despite the excitement curling its way around her, Allura can feel that something isn’t right. She knows his energy well enough by now, and it’s screaming, enough so that she wanted to press her hand to the glass. He was hurting, wherever he was, and the need to see him ate away relentlessly at her poised resolve.

“I’m ready.” She signals, and waits as the lights clack on one by one.

The sight that meets her eyes punches her so hard that she has to look away, and look back, just to check it wasn’t her mind imagining the absolute worst.

When they flicker back, they are full of an ice-cold severity.

He’s his limbs locked behind him so tightly as to lift him from the seat. His hair spills lifelessly over his shoulder, and blood drips from his chin. Human soldiers press him for words that he cannot utter, and they press a button and – shock him, when he cannot answer. His muscles twitch, and she senses,_ feels_ every shock they subject his body to. Every silent strain of his voice.

No.

No, no, no.

“Stop this at once!” Allura hisses, turning to the doctor, “_Stop this!!!_” 

He just watches her though, calm and not even remotely perturbed. He just, watches, while her world disintegrates around her. _‘Bastard,’_ she thinks. This was all a set-up, to see how she would respond. _‘Fucking bastard.’ _She would deal with him later. Right now, Lotor needs her help.

Two human soldiers bar her exit, and she is sure that her glare alone could have dissolved them to mulch. “Get out of my way!” She roars, almost knocking both of them off balance.

“Your Highness!” One of them says, suddenly looking very worried as she heads towards a very foreboding door, “You can’t go in there…”

“Watch me.”

She shirks them when they try to stop her, and blows the iron door from its hinges. Alarm bells ring, lights flash red, and suddenly there are soldiers everywhere.

“Princess…” a sly-looking colonel says, “You can’t be in here.”

Allura sees white. The universe would stop at nothing to ensure Lotor’s suffering, from the moment of his birth, to the moment of his death. They were torturing him, for what sort of reason? What reason could there possibly be? Allura’s own energy sets her skin aglow.

She could fight physically, all too easily now that her body was repaired. She could go quietly, and what would that achieve, other than to secure the assumption that she was a figurative doormat or a decorative ornament? No, Allura thinks. She is done being trampled, and walked over. She is done giving everybody the impression that she was weak and pitiful, and of no consequence. She was the last daughter of Old Altea, chosen by Oriande, a defender of the universe.

And never again, in the course of history, would she allow them to doubt it. 

“Stay back.” She warns them. She is calm, and cold, her voice a little lower than usual, “Or I’ll not show mercy.”

Not one of them so much as speaks or moves, staring emptily into the eerie glow of her eyes. It is as if she walked upon the air, silently, hair afloat in a gust of quintessence. She defies them to stop her with a glare alone.

He sees her, and oh, the relief in his soul when he does.

“Lotor…” She lowers gracefully to his knees beside him, “It’s alright.”

They’ve restrained him so tightly that when she releases him, Alchemy of course, for she cannot fathom how to undo the blasted contraptions otherwise, he falls from the chair with a grunt, limbs set in place instead of breaking his fall. Her cool hand cups his face, and he leans into it with a feverish gaze, barely able to make her out against the blaring lighting overhead.

“A-llura…” He splutters, longing to reach for her hand if only his limbs would move. She is there to catch him before his cheek hits the floor, ears ringing and vision blurred.

“How dare you?” She seethes, “_How dare you?!_”

“Princess,” the corporal condescendingly turning on his heel, as if she were a child, “You are a guest on this ship, and you have no authority to go breaking down doors and entering restricted areas.”

“And what a good job I did, Corporal, or I might have failed to appreciate the disgusting interrogation methods you are using here.” She says, “I am escorting this prisoner to the medical bay, whereupon I will see to it that he receives proper care. Then I will have dinner with the Altean High Minister, and decide how to initiate the repercussions for the torture of a prisoner under my planet’s jurisdiction.”

“He’s guilty of genocide. The families of his victims, also under your planet’s jurisdiction, might appreciate some justice in the universe.”

Bitterness bites at Allura’s heels. While she had found it in herself to forgive Lotor, she had always known there would be those in the universe who could not.

‘_Selfish_.’ Her brain reminds her. She wanted him safe because he was her lover, not because it was what was good for the universe. That was why they had brought her down here after all, to see how she would react. She can’t see Dr. Dekrines from this side of the one-way mirror, but she knows he is there all the same. Scribbling his notes and shaking his little grey head.

No, that wasn’t right, she hesitates. When she left the Voltron Coalition, it stood for peace, and justice. And that certainly did not condone torture. Not even of Lotor.

“Justice will be done, Corporal, I reassure you of that.” She says, “But this is hardly the kind of example the people of Earth should be setting.”

Reasoning with him seemed the most diplomatic thing to do, but she was well aware that if he was willing to shock information out of Lotor, that he most likely would not be interested in listening.

“Come, Humans and Alteans are friends, are they not? Have a stretcher brought and we shall find a way to resolve this matter amicably.”

“This is a political matter far beyond your understanding. Step away from the prisoner. Sergeant, show the princess out.”

She takes a deep breath. Reasoning was out. “I will not be going anywhere, with any of you.”

“Step away from the prisoner, Princess. I will not ask you again.”

She hears the click of a gun behind her, trained on her, as if somehow she were the unreasonable one. Hate bubbled and boiled beneath her skin as she stood. No, she thought, she would not leave this room with a gun in her back. These people had done nothing but disrespect and infantilise her since she woke. She grimaces with clenched fists. It was time that they learned some respect.

Allura gently lowers Lotor’s head to the floor, and raises herself to her feet. “Gentlemen, it would be preferable for all if I did not have to remove the prisoner by force.”

The corporal taunts her with a raised eyebrow and a chuckle. “If you do that you will start another war.”

She can hear the sergeant sneaking up behind her before she sees him, and she grits her teeth in annoyance. Harnessing a little of that angry quintessence, she sends him hurtling all the way back into the desk with a simple push of her hand, where he rotates ungracefully over the top of it, taking piles of spilled papers into the air with him. 

“No, Corporal.” She says tiredly, “My actions will not start another war. Yours will.”

More guns, what was it with humans and guns?

“I said, step back.” She repeats deliberately, “Or I will not show mercy.”

Palms to the ceiling, Allura closes her eyes, inhales, and unleashes the impossibly bright fire that had been burning inside her. All of her love, all of her hate, and everything in between, the room erupted in golden flames, her as their epicentre, in a demonstration of what she could do if she were pushed to. She was a goddess when she unleashed her power. Men scarpered, some tried to fire bullets that could not penetrate the flames.

Lotor’s heart beats. She is an angel, all-glorious and all-powerful, hands high and face stern, as if she could have meant to start another war in that very moment. As much as he knows it can be nothing other than political suicide, that she would do _this_, for him, filled him with exorbitant joy.

She isn’t going to kill them, or even hurt them. She just has to frighten them. It took a few ticks, just a few ticks, for her to strike the fear of their gods into them. More would be excessive, she thinks. Some had huddled into balls on the floor, believing they would be burned alive, while others had taken cover behind pieces of furniture, for all the good that would have done them if she had intended to harm them.

Their guns are discarded on the floor, nothing but a melted mess incapable of firing anything. Once she lets her power rest, and the arrogant corporal has realised that he is indeed still alive, he stumbles to regain his footing and dives to retrieve his cap, but he is too speechless to form words. 

Suddenly, there is not a non-believer among them.

Pleased, Allura places her hands on her hips.

_‘Too damned right.’_ she thinks.

* * *

Lotor’s legs could not be straightened for a few vargas. After painkillers and muscle relaxants, Allura’s own hands rubbed at his thighs and calves to loosen the muscles, and by comparison to his previous treatment, Lotor is in heaven. Relatively, of course. The hospital bed is too soft, and too clean, but Allura is at his side, and that in itself is golden.

She has a dinner engagement, her hair is beautifully done, her brand-new suit already soiled with his blood, of all things, but it has been vargas, and she is still here. He could not quite believe what she had done for him. It was political suicide, by anyone’s standards. She would drag any chance she had of recognition through the mud. It was a terribly uncalculated move, and not an entirely pretty one, but she had done it for him, and that was too wonderful for words.

“Princess…” He reminds her quietly, “You have somewhere to be.”

“How can I leave you when I know what they will do when my back is turned?” She says angrily, “From now on I’m not letting you out of my sight. And why in Feyiv’s name didn’t you free yourself with-”

Allura chides herself, she already knows the answer to that, and it would be unwise to mention it when they cannot be sure of their privacy. He had held his power in, like he had before, and for now, so would she have to hold in the knowledge of it.

She lets her voice fade into the sounds of bleeping machines. “What did they hope to extract from you?”

He sighs. “They suspect I have a weapon of mass destruction, squirrelled away somewhere. They want to get their hands on it before anyone else does.”

She pauses for a moment with a raised eyebrow. “Do you?”

“No.” He says, throwing her a daft glance, and she shrugs, lowering to lean her chin against his hand.

“Just checking.”

“You must be careful.” He warns her, “What you did was, magnificent, but the humans will see it as a declaration of hostility.”

“For exactly what it was, then.” She says, “You know better than anyone that a show of power, at the right time and place, can be invaluable.”

He hopes to Feyiv and back that she is right.

“The audience was hardly optimal.” He says.

“Indeed.” She says, “But the camera feeds from that cell go straight to the Atlas bridge. It seems they have concerns about you escaping.”

Catching her drift, he raises his eyebrows. “Well, I shall take that as a compliment.” He says, staring into her victorious smile, “You look beautiful.”

Lotor really has no idea why he says these things anymore, only that they are little pieces of honesty that just seem to fall out. No compliment seems too much for her. Perhaps he is biased. 

Allura is sure that she feels her cheeks heat up. “You’re full of nonsense.” 

“Who is the lucky man?” Lotor teases, indicating to her elaborately done hair.

“The First Minister of Altea.” She says, “There are so many things we need to discuss.”

“Iliyor?”

“Yes.” She nods, surprised that he knew the name. Then again, she supposed she shouldn’t be surprised when Lotor had governed New Altea up until only fifty odd deca-phoebs ago, “I hear he is about to lose an election.”

“The people did not care for him as perhaps they should, he proposed taxing the wealthy, and the wealthy did not agree. I preferred him to the other candidates, he was trustworthy, at least.”

“Will he be helpful, though?”

“New Altea believes very strongly in the return of its alchemic history Allura, and so does he.” Lotor says, “You can’t leave him waiting.” He murmurs, “He’ll be famished by now.”

“Sod him.” She says, curling his hand in hers once she is satisfied that his arms and legs are tenderised, “He can wait.”

“He cannot.” Lotor says sadly, “You must stop worrying about me.”

He needed her to leave him behind, if she ever hoped to achieve the greatness that she was destined for. He could only drag her down now, make her a laughing stock. Her lips pressing to his knuckles break him from that thought. 

“I’ll stop worrying about you when I know you’re safe.” 

He knew that he needed to let her go, and then she would say things like that, that put a blush on his cheeks and fire in his heart.

“Allura…” He purrs contentedly, leaning back into the crisp pillows. 

“Rest now.” She says, “I’ve a very important dinner to eat.”

He is nodding off by the time Allura shrinks out of the hospital room, closing the door silently behind her to meet a concerned-looking Coran.

“I’d like you to stay with him.” She says, “All night, if necessary. I’m sorry Coran, I’ll have them bring you up some food, but one of us needs to be by his side at all times. I’m going to appeal to the First Minister for an emergency extraction.”

“Very good Princess.” He says, “Your gown is put out in your quarters. I hope you can talk some sense into them all.”

“Thank you.” She says, turning to leave, “Oh, and Coran, see that Shiro and Keith are invited to dinner as well.” 

“Right-o.”

* * *

Coran’s stomach rumbled angrily, and he lets his shoulder droops unhappily, once he knows that Allura is gone. Sandwiches and tea it would have to be then.

Lotor’s tall frame is too long for the human bed, so he has one knee bent uncomfortably, and the other foot draped off the edge. The bruising is starting to come out in his arms and over his face, the nurses have dressed the burns, and he looks as wretched as Coran has ever seen him.

“You don’t have to look down at me with such disdain.” Lotor says, addressing Coran’s back as if to throw daggers at it. “I didn’t-” He swallows, that was hardly the sort of thing Allura’s father-figure would want to hear, “I could never hurt her.”

A frown pulls at Coran’s lips. If he were honest, he had doubted that Lotor would hurt her when push came to shove. Or perhaps he simply could not entertain the notion of the opposite.

“But I do, my boy, and you know it.” He wrings his hands. Lotor had made his bed, and now he had to lie in it.

“I never expected otherwise.”

“Then you know that the forgiveness you seek can never be given.”

Lotor’s eyes narrow like slits. “And you know, that her forgiveness is the only thing that matters to me.”

Arms folded over his chest, Coran sighs, and relaxes his guard. Lotor may be millennia older than any other living Altean, but he still has spikes of immaturity, that you would barely know they were there, buried in duty and responsibility, and now burden. Somewhere under all of that, he certainly had the hopeful heart of a younger man.

Coran’s, however, had not weathered quite so well.

“What are you afraid of? That I’m a monster, or that perhaps that I would be the one to take her away from you?”

Lotor knows he shouldn’t push. It did no good, he was Allura’s only remaining family, and somehow, Lotor wanted to tear him to shreds, without the slightest idea why.

“You really can be an ungrateful little shit.” Coran says, he was trying to help him, for the Sages’ sake, “Just, stop thinking the world’s out to get you for two ticks!”

“The universe _is _out to get me!” He says, “Why can’t you just admit that you wish I had died out there? It would clear the air.”

Coran runs a hand through his hair. If Lotor had died, things would have been so much less, complicated. There would be no questions of right and wrong, just tragedy. Tragedy, somehow, was quite a bit easier to stomach.

“The Altean authorities know what you did.” He says, “The general populace, does not. I for one, know how I feel about wilful murder.” His gaze softens, “But they also know that what you did reduced the duration of the Scarcity by ten or so deca-phoebs.”

“And I will take the fall regardless.”

“Yes, you will. You might try to do it with some dignity.”

Sarcasm bites in Lotor’s voice. “I’ll remember to salute the Ancients as they walk me down to the pits.”

“Everyone always used to say how you turned out just like your father in the end.” Coran shakes his head with a disappointed shrug, “No. Nope. You aren’t like your father at all, you’re just like your mother.”

Lotor stares, disarmed of his venom entirely.

That shut him up.

Coran gives a sigh. Even in shock he is irreverent. He had not imagined the Honerva he remembered giving birth to quite such a monstrosity. He is so like his mother though, his eyes staring defiant through whatever obstacle that lay in front of him.

Lotor is silent now, his fist curled into the blanket.

“You knew my mother?”

“Yes.”

Coran know that he really shouldn’t be offering olive branches. But here, he’s not a tyrant, or a murderer. He’s just a boy.

“Brilliant she was too. And she wouldn’t think much of your jip, I can tell you that for nought.”

“Do not provoke me.” Lotor says, “What my mother would or would not think of me now is irrelevant. It changes nothing. You are quite right. I cannot take back what I’ve done. I had hoped for a quick death, or perhaps to fade away into obscurity in some far-off prison cell. But…” His voice trails away.

“And you will not be able to take her with you, wherever you are going.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” Lotor snaps.

“Now now,” Coran says, “I’ve no doubt that you love her, not for one second.”

“But you do not approve.”

The older man sighs again. “It’s not for me to approve or disapprove. But I will say one thing.” He says, “To love her, my boy, you might have to do the noble thing, and let her go.”

* * *


	24. Chapter 24

* * *

It must be nearly midnight before Allura manages to wash Lotor’s blood from her hands, and slip into her turquoise gown. It’s heavier than she thought it would be, more like battle armour after all. She’d forgotten how damned inconvenient these things were to wear. Dinner seemed like a relative afterthought now, but she would be lying if this evening hadn’t made her a little hungry. She hoped to Feyiv that the food wasn’t too rich - she didn’t know if her stomach would be able to tolerate it after the metallic smell that etched itself onto her memory.

They had stared, every single one, it was almost as if they could smell him on her, which made Allura all the more keen to scrub it off. She could not help but wonder how it would be if it were the other way around, if Lotor had walked in on Galra soldiers torturing her. He wouldn’t have been so merciful, she thinks, and none of them would have thought him irrational. It was more than acceptable in any society for a male to protect their mate, why should she not do the same? 

Never mind, she thinks. The doctor would have his two pence worth, surely enough. And she would not allow it to get to her in any way.

News spreads fast on the Atlas, it seems. A couple of soldiers stared at her as she walked herself, this time up a few flights of stairs to the Commander’s deck. She had waved the guards away, she hadn’t a need for them anyway. Every person she encountered diverted their gaze and hurried past, and she cannot say that she is sorry for it. But if humans only offered their respect out of fear, they could hardly be surprised.

The First Minister of Altea is younger than she thought he would be. He is blonde, with hair smartly braided to the nape of his neck, teal-ish eyes framed with blue markings. He is handsome enough, she supposed, perhaps that was how he secured the majority in the first place.

It looks like someone had shown him in here vargas ago and left him to fend for himself. He does not seem even remotely perturbed that his dinner has been delayed, in fact he seems most grateful to be having any dinner at all. His eyes flicker back to her when they catch her in a glance, and widen at the sight of her, as if he cannot quite believe the sight.

She supposes that she must be quite the spectacle by now, for a variety of reasons, and she is quietly thankful, when upon receiving her, he drops to his knee.

“Your Royal Highness,” he says as she offers her hand for him to kiss, “it is a great pleasure to be in your presence.”

Out of all the people who have recited this line to her so far, he appears to be the only person who has meant it.

“First Minister,” She says, quietly wiping her hand on her skirts, “I can’t tell you how happy I am to make your acquaintance. I can only apologise for delaying your meal.”

“I’ll hear none of that!” He says, beaming at her perhaps even with a tear in his eye, “None of it at all. Our princess has returned to us, when we thought she was lost forever. Dinner is an insignificance. I can’t tell you how much this will mean to our people.” He smiles enthusiastically, “I’d like to arrange an official visit, as soon as possible. Could you be ready for an address in a couple of quintants?”

“Quintants?” She balks elatedly, “I can be ready in a matter of doboshes!” She clears her throat to regain her composure, “But I fear I have delayed your sustenance long enough.”

“Not to worry.” He says, “It will be all the better when it arrives. Human food isn’t as terrible as its sometimes reputed to be.”

A guard shows them into the Atlas’ dining room, boarded with oak and lavished with red carpets and candlelight, only the most important guests would eat in here.

“I hear the ambassador will not be joining us.” He says, offering Allura a flute of something fizzy from the tray, and then a somewhat cheeky grin when she hesitates, “Come now, we’ve been waiting all evening, don’t deny me the champagne too.”

“Alright.” She says, taking the glass, “I won’t tell if you won’t. And no, I’ve assigned him to watch Prince Lotor. I’m afraid that while I owe a great deal to the Atlas crew, that I find their ethical culture somewhat lacking.”

“I was briefed when my ship landed.” He says flatly, “Humans are more afraid of peace than they are of war. Your return, and I daresay, Prince Lotor’s, has reminded them of glorious times of unrest. In which they must leave no stone unturned and no trinket untampered with.”

She takes a sip of her dry champagne. “First Minister, I sincerely hope you are not referring to me as a trinket.”

“Heavens no.” He finishes his flute with a gulp, “I’m sure you are familiar with others pushing and pulling you to their own advantage, and humans are no different.”

“Hard to rebut when you’re unconscious.”

Iliyor’s eyes flash awkwardly, as if he had hoped that she would not bring it up. He knows though, they’ve told him, she can tell. She had made just enough stink for it to waft back to whoever the humans considered to be responsible for her. 

“Princess, I will ensure that there will be severe repercussions for your treatment aboard this ship.” He says, “You need not concern yourself. Human law is more than clear on these matters. Our legal aides will have this thoroughly cleared up after you have disembarked.”

“And Prince Lotor’s?”

Both of them are interrupted as a tall foreboding figure pushes the door with a shoulder, and backs himself in, pulling a laden wheelchair behind him. He’s older, greying, but the frown is unmistakably -

Keith’s.

This was the first time that Allura had seen Keith since boarding the Atlas. He hadn’t so much as sent a message of good wishes, let alone attempted to see her in person, and Allura wondered whether or not he really cared if she were dead or alive.

He was midway through a hushed conversation with the elderly man in the wheelchair, although the gentleman was not doing a very good job of keeping their interactions quiet.

“I need to get going!” He shouts, “I’m going to be late for class!”

The man in the wheelchair has been getting more and more agitated, so much so that Allura cannot concentrate on Keith anymore. He is wearing even more medals than Keith is, clasped to a black blazer that did not really fit.

“Shh. Not so loud.” Keith takes a deep breath to reassure his patience, “You’re not going to be late for class.” He reassures him irritatedly, “You don’t need to go to class anymore.”

“But…” His eyes show a flash of panic, followed by utter confusion, “But I won’t graduate…”

“Class can wait, just this once.” Keith sighs, readjusting the position of the wheelchair and applying the brakes, “Today is a special occasion! I told you we were going to see Allura?” He continues, “She’s waited a long time to see you.”

“Commander!” Iliyor remarks in a suggestive, all-too-familiar manner, “It looks like someone got you out of bed.”

Allura’s eyes widen.

“He wasn’t asleep if that’s what you mean, First Minister.”

Iliyor’s remark was spot on, Keith looked exactly like someone had got him out of bed for this engagement, and dragged him through a hedge backwards, and it wasn’t just the difference in his age. His medalled uniform is neat enough, but his greying hair looks untidily swept back, and the dark bags under his eyes don’t add to the equation.

“Keith!” She says, struggling to keep a good grip on her champagne flute.

“Allura-”

“It’s, so good to see you!” She says, longing to go and give him a hug, and then thinking better of the idea.

He gives a small tired smile. “It’s good to see you too.” He says, “I regret that I haven’t been to visit you. It seems my time is, rather in demand, these days.”

“You’re busy, of course.” She says, “I’m sorry to summon you so late at night, but it’s important that you hear what I have to say.”

“No time like the present.” He says, with half an eye on the man who is trying to clamber out of the wheelchair. He discards the blanket on his lap, but completely unable to lift himself, Keith supports him as he lowers himself back down again.

She waits patiently for the man to settle. Old age was a terrible thing, and humans aged quickly, compared to other species. Shifting the blanket again, Allura catches a glimpse of something metallic peeking out. A hand.

Ans Allura feels as if she has been punched in the stomach.

“Shiro?” She whispers, as her eyes fill with disbelief, “Shiro is that you?”

When Keith finally persuades him to look at her, his jaw drops, and his grey eyes stare. “Allura…” He gasps, struggling to catch his breath as a grin erupted on his face, “Allura! You came back!”

Allura falls to her knees, ignoring her regal behaviour, and envelops the old man in a hug.

“Oh!” He says, patting her enthusiastically on the back, “I knew you would. It’s so good to see you back on the Castle where you belong!”

The words see her stomach sink. He’s crying, actually streaming tears, and she immediately distracts herself by offering him a handkerchief, with a doubtful look at Keith.

“He thinks he’s on the Castle of Lions.” Keith explains quietly, “He has done for years now. It’s dementia. There’s no point in trying to correct him.”

“Don’t belittle me in front of the princess!” Shiro shouts, waving a cane at Keith and knocking his glass out of his hand, “Whoever you think you are! I know where I am!”

“Perhaps we should all take a seat, this dinner has been evasive enough as it is.” Says Iliyor.

“I do apologise First Minister.” Keith says, moving to take the wheelchair, only for Allura to take it instead.

“I’ve got it.” She says, pushing Shiro away towards the only place at the table that was laid out but lacking a chair. 

“Let us cut to the chase.” Keith says, pressing the button to indicate they were ready for service and turning his attention away from the grumbling Shiro. Allura notices that he has already downed his first glass of champagne, and is almost halfway through his first glass of red, “I have seen the footage from your demonstration earlier, Allura.”

“Then there must be little more that I can say on the subject that would clarify my feelings.” She says, “Keith, how could you allow something like that to happen?”

There is a pregnant pause as servers arrive with plates of food. They gratefully receive top-ups to their glasses, but no one speaks again until the door is firmly shut, apart from Shiro, who is critiquing his wine in a mumbling tone that Allura cannot quite hear.

“It’s an imperfect universe, Allura.” He says, “I understand that you have - regard, for Lotor, but it doesn’t change the fact that he is one of the most dangerous criminals to ever fare the stars.”

“We, have a responsibility to be better.” She says, “Otherwise how can we call ourselves civilised?”

“And Corporal Lesalle was making good progress, until you interrupted him.”

“Torture is an ineffective method of interrogation, there are multiple studies to corroborate that fact.” She argues, “Prisoners will say anything to make it stop, in fact I think Lotor had your men on the ropes for several vargas before I so rudely interrupted them. You cannot take your anger out on Lotor because you dislike him, that is not constitutional.”

“And with due respect, you cannot give him clemency because your ordeal has taken its toll on your brain.” Keith says, “The ship’s psychiatrist says you’re suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.”

Allura puts down her fork. “I do not know what that is, and let me be clear, I have no intention of finding out, and let that be for your own good.” She says, “The bottom line is clear; I should not have to intervene in a torture interrogation of an Altean prisoner on an Earth ship.”

“I am inclined to agree, Commander.”

Allura had been so engorged in her conversation with Keith that she had almost forgotten about the Altean Minister, watching them to and fro like youths. Iliyor has listened with interest, and finished his starter in mere doboshes.

“As the Galra Empire no longer exists, the Coalition recognises that a person cannot be stateless, and as such, Prince Lotor, therefore, whatever we all may think of him, is an Altean citizen under intergalactic law. The Altean High Circle has made itself quite clear on these issues before, we will not condone the torture of a prisoner under our jurisdiction by any foreign power.”

“First Mi-”

He raises his fingers from the table. “Let, me finish Commander. As such, I will be arranging an emergency extraction, a suitable holding ship will be dispatched immediately. As usual, I shall expect your full cooperation.”

“First Minister,” Keith says, “We have reason to believe that Lotor has information that is pertinent to our security.”

“Then let us extract it from him.” Allura argues, “We shall share that information with you when it is forthcoming.”

Iliyor adds: “Humans and Alteans share a special friendship, do we not?” 

“And that brings me to another point.” Keith says, downing the rest of his glass and reaching for the decanter, “I respect Allura’s good intentions, I really do, but she had no authority to stop that interrogation, or to endanger the lives of my crew.”

Iliyor, Allura is learning, wastes absolutely no time getting to the point. “I saw the footage, Commander. She offered an amicable resolution, your men pointed guns at her.”

“That is irrelevant, she does not represent the Altean authorities.” Keith says, “Not anymore.”

Well, Allura thinks, now she is in no doubt as to what Keith thinks of her.

Iliyor throws Keith a particularly shady look, while he tops up his own glass.

“When the ambassador reported the princess’ survival, I admit, there was a reason for my delayed arrival.” He says, “The Altean High Circle have debated, extensively, how we intend to recognise the princess, who was so very instrumental in securing our freedom from the Galra Empire. Not only ours, I might add, but the freedom of hundreds of civilisations. Alteans are a spiritual people, Commander, as I think you are aware.” He says, “And one of the most widely held spiritual beliefs of our people is that the Alchemy of Old Altea will return, and our planet will return to its former glory. See before you, it has returned, in the form of our princess.”

“How is this relevant?”

Iliyor gestures with his hand that he is not quite finished. “As such, the High Circle have given a unanimous decision to recognise her with the titles to which she is accustomed. She remains, quite rightly, an acknowledged princess of Altea, and I hope that your crew will treat her thus.”

Suddenly, it is for Allura as if the air is crisper, cleansed of the miasma of bad feeling that she had, that she was behaving like a princess when she had no right to be one. How foolish she had been, she thinks. She was a princess of Altea. That could not be taken from her, not even by death. She had spent so long worrying that the deca-phoebs had made her inconsequential, that she had almost started to believe that she was.

Almost.

For Allura was not inconsequential, whether an Altean politician said so or not.

Keith must have taken that glass of wine, and drained it in one gulp. “I shall ensure it, First Minister.”

“Good, then let us leave it at that.” Iliyor says, “I am hoping not to spoil the main course.” 

Keith takes a deep breath, and reaches for the decanter again. It was then that Shiro piped up, nudging Allura in the ribs while Keith occupied Iliyor’s attention.

“How,” he begins, clasping at her hand, “How are you, my angel?”

She smiles. “I’m well.” She says, “Alive, and that’s what matters. I’ve missed you so much.”

His cheesy grin can only prompt her to smile even more. “You’re the best god-damned pilot in this place. Put-“ he announces to the room, “Put her back on the bridge, she can fly us out of here!”

Allura supposed that she shouldn’t be mildly entertained by a old man with a fragile mind, but she couldn’t help but chuckle. Shiro was undoubtedly the best thing about this evening so far.

“He, he’s a funny fellow.” He says under his breath, which might have been subtle, had he not jabbed a finger at him at arm’s length.

“Well I’m not sure I’d call him funny.” She replies, well-within Iliyor’s earshot, “But he’s certainly effectual.”

“Yes, more so than that old fart.” He gestures at Keith, who pauses mid-chew, “You’d think achieving all he wanted in his life would have made him less sour.”

Keith’s face gave Allura the impression that perhaps there was more truth in the ramblings of an old man than he would like to admit.

“Look at him go.” Shiro says, tilting his head towards the ever-dwindling wine, “You’d think it was a - a contest.”

“Shiro.” Keith’s eyes flash warningly.

“I always told him there are no answers to be found at the bottom of a bottle, but he never listened.”

“Shiro,” she adds, “I don’t think insulting Keith is going to do any good.”

“Why not? Reasoning with him never gets me anywhere. I’m old enough to say what I like.”

“We have a guest.” She says, holding his hand gently, “Just, try to be civil.”

Shiro sets his jaw in a long frown. “You know, he’s only delaying the other paladins arrival because he doesn’t want Lance around.”

Keith throws down his cutlery. “Allura, I can assure you that’s not true.”

“It’s alright.” She says gently, dispersing the tension with a wave of her hand, “Gentlemen, let’s retain our dignity.”

Allura was thankful for the arrival of the main course, along with enough food to shut them all up for a couple of doboshes. Shiro waits until Iliyor has engaged them in another conversation, which she is actually rather interested in listening to, until Shiro nudges her again. 

“They, _you know_.” He whispers, making a lewd hand gesture under the table, “He’s been banned from the ship ever since.”

Her jaw drops momentarily. It might not be true, of course. Shiro has already waxed lyrical about being in college, and being on the Castle of Lions, nothing he said could really be taken at face value. And yet, would she really be surprised?

Keith is certainly far more withdrawn now, and the moment that his spoon touches the plate, he could not be quicker in excusing himself. A pang of disappointment eats away at her conscience. She had wanted to rebuild her bridges with Keith, not burn them down.

“We really must be going, I’m afraid.” He says, wiping his mouth with a napkin.

“Keith,” she begins, as chairs begin to scuff on the floor, “please, I have missed you all so terribly. I would so like to be friends. Could we not set our differences aside?”

Keith pauses behind Shiro’s wheelchair, folding his arms over his chest uncomfortably. “Allura, you left us.” He says solemnly, “We barely made it out of the Rift alive that day. None of us have ever been the same, and Pidge’s health…” He cuts himself off with a irritable lick of his lip, “You made your choice. You risked five lives for one. You can’t just walk back into them like nothing ever happened! Good night Princess, Minister.”

Iliyor’s sideways glance was enough to sum up his entire evening.

“It seems the Commander has indulged rather too much on this excellent wine.” He says, trying desperately to mitigate the shock on her face, “I think we should call it a night.”

* * *

Allura manages to hold in the tears until she is safely back in her room.

She hasn’t cried into her pillows like this since she was a little girl.

They hated her. She had left them to die and they hated her for it. Tears flowed and flowed. Hunk must have died hating her. Nobody here was happy to see her at all. Perhaps with the exception of Shiro, who likely did not remember the incident at all.

What make her guiltier than anything, was that Lotor’s embrace was the only comfort that she wanted.

Sleep doesn’t come, and after a few vargas of restlessness, Allura throws the covers off with a scowl.

The Atlas is somewhat quieter at night, for which Allura is thankful. The medical bay is silent, with no inpatients currently, apart from Lotor.

“I’ve come to take over.” She says to Coran, who is propped up in his chair, persevering in trying to keep his eyes open. Lotor is sleeping soundly.

“How has he been?”

She’d packed cold cloths to her eyes in a desperate attempt to hide the redness from her crying. Coran would notice without a doubt, but his fatigue was on her side, and he made no comments whatsoever.

“Urgh.” Coran groans, “Bright enough to give lip, that’s for sure and certain.” He pats around the carpet for the crumpled book he had brought with him.

“I hope he’s been behaving himself.”

“I’ve more than a few tricks up my sleeve.” He says, “How was the dinner?”

“Eventful.” She says, pinching her eyes, “I’ll tell you all about it in the morning. But New Altea is going to recognise me officially from now on.”

“Well, that’s a turn-up.” He says with a stretch, “I knew you could do it.”

Allura bites her lip. She would tell Coran all about it in the morning, for now it was too much to talk about.

“There’s a transport coming for Lotor at some point over the next forty vargas. Would you be able to relieve me at daybreak?”

“Very well, Princess.” He yawns, “I’ll catch a few vargas kip, and be back in the morning.”

“Thank you Coran.”

Allura waits until the door clicks shut, and she can no longer hear his steps disappearing down the corridor. She had forgotten how peaceful he looks when he’s asleep.

She pulls off her vambraces, pulls her hair out of its bun, and slides herself between the covers. Burying her head and inhaling his scent, she already feels warmer than she did before. She hadn’t intended to disturb him, but he stirs anyway, looping an arm around her as she sobs silently into his shoulder.

“_They hate me Lotor_.”

He shifts his weight slightly to accommodate her body, and all of her wounded emotions pour into his chest, and he swallows. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. She was supposed to return to a place where she was safe and appreciated, not made to feel guilty by ungratefuls who had no idea what she had sacrificed in the name of peace. How was he supposed to shrink away into obscurity when she was so upset?

“They are fools.” He answers, stroking her back.

“I left them to die…” She shakes, “I never thought about it like that, but I did.”

“The paladins?”

Her grip on him tightens, and she nods. “It’s been six phoebs, for us, and it never even crossed my mind.”

“And yet they are not dead.” Lotor whispers, “My darling, they are only alive because of you.” He says, “As am I.”

Her fingers curl at the nape of his neck. ‘Darling’ was such a ridiculous, saccharine word, and yet when his lips meant it for her, it sounded wonderful.

“I had to make a decision.” She sobs, holding him tighter than ever, “_And I don’t know if I made the right one_.”

Lotor holds her to him, in just the way he knows she needs. “You are a leader.” He tells her, “And you lead in the most powerful way, by example.”

His thumb brushes her arm as if to reassure him of his grip. This was useless, he thought to himself. The old man was right. She shouldn’t be here and he should not be encouraging her.

“I know, I –” She says, blinking more tears from her eyes, “I know that my decisions are going to be criticised, that’s just a part of life. I just, wasn’t prepared for how it would make me feel. I’m not used to it, I suppose.”

“I am, I’ll teach you.” He presses a kiss to her temple, feeling smugly happy when she gives a small laugh.

“How are you always so strong?” She asks him, “I have to summon my strength, you just always seem to have it.”

He deliberates.

“Because you make me want to be strong.” He says after a moment, stroking her back lazily, “I think I could do anything in the universe for you.”

And just like that, she melts into a puddle with a hum. “You make me strong too.” She murmurs, brushing strands of his hair from his face.

Allura stills after a little while. Her tears dry up, her body relaxes, until sleep threatens to come, warm and loved in Lotor’s arms. 

“I don’t think this will be allowed.” He says, “Not even on New Altea.”

Her eyes catch his, like they had so many times, and Lotor lies transfixed as she presses a long kiss to his mouth.

Kissing her is far too easy, like a muscle memory requiring no thought, just feel. Languid, innocent kisses breathe almost inaudible gasps and moans in the dark silence around them. If she spent every spare varga just here and never slept again, Allura was sure that she could be content with that.

His hands wander freely, shifting her to lie on top of him, eventually travelling down her waist to squeeze her arse and a groan rumbles in his throat. He far, far preferred her healthy. He had never been quite so naturally expressive with touch as she was, but now, he wanted desperately to feel her. He’s holding her to him, setting about squeezing and massaging her curves without a thought, under the blankets like horny adolescents. Since that fateful day on the Sincline ship, they had sated themselves with as much sex as they pleased. Five odd quintants hardly seemed trivial, but to Lotor, it felt like forever without her.

“Oh Allura…” he growls, “You feel…”

Allura whimpers and arches into his grip. He could make her feel so good, but it wasn’t just that. His attentions made her feel powerful, in some odd way, they built her up, just like he did.

“We’ll - have - to be quiet.” She says, ripping it down to her waist and wriggling to kick it down her legs, although she is sure that he is enjoying the movement. His hospital gown is far easier to remove, better yet he had a whole drawer of spares, and Allura tears it apart at the seams to reveal the heat of his skin.

“There’s no one outside.” He gasps, “Hasn’t been for vargas. Mmphf-”

A very naked Allura is on top of him again, and while his pain smarts, his battered body could hardly object. He propped himself up against the pillows, lifting her into his lap.

That was better.

Her knees almost slip off the edge of this tiny human hospital bed, but Allura doesn’t care.

“_Are you going to come and visit me like this on New Altea?_” He gasps, shuddering as the feeling of being inside her overwhelms him.

“_Maybe I’ll have you handcuffed to my headboard.”_ She puffs with a nip to his lower lip.

“Ha.” He laughs, “_What a terrible thing_.”

* * *


	25. Chapter 25

* * *

Delays in their departures stack up amidst the report that there were still others quite keen to see Allura before she departed for New Altea. 

This morning, Allura is filled with a brightness that she hadn’t been party to in quite some time. Or at least she would be if the human toast that Coran had brought her earlier didn’t taste like cardboard. She pushes the plate away. Perhaps it’s the Atlas cuisine, or perhaps she is sickening for something. Either way, she wasn’t prepared to let anything dull her good spirits today.

It seemed that Shiro’s timely outburst had given Keith the kick he needed to give Lance clearance to board the Atlas, and that finally she would get the visit she so desired.

But there is altogether more important business that she has to conduct this morning. Iliyor hadn’t been exactly forthcoming as to the High Circle’s stance on Lotor in their initial meeting. Everything had to be decided upon by unanimous vote, and, so she understood, most decisions were a long time in the making. Over a video comm, and a glass of wine, Iliyor had called her to discuss their thoughts the evening before.

The flicker of a line in his brow indicated to Allura that he wasn’t particularly happy about the arrangement, and that could only serve to make her evening more marvellous. His intentions, whilst subtle, were undoubtable. Not that any of that ridiculous pomp were unfamiliar to her. If it wasn’t Lance, it was some idiot or another, and now that she was preparing to go back to a life of royal duties in a peacetime, she would undoubtedly become the freshest piece of meat in the intergalactic marriage market.

Hopefully, she would be able to thwart it all before the courtship requests began falling into her lap.

All she had to do now, was tell Lotor.

She hadn’t supposed that she might ever have a day like this one. Well, she tidied the hair around her face, she hadn’t exactly much to offer in the way of a promise, but she hardly thought he’d mind. 

After a few quintants, he had been deemed too healthy for the medical bay, and returned to his cell in the prison bay. Allura had had her vambrace linked up to the cameras in his cell, so that she and Coran could keep an eye on him. Keith had offered as a goodwill gesture, and she had accepted readily. If ever she could not sleep, she could know he was safe with the flick of a switch. No one from the Atlas had dared interact with him again, she was happy to acknowledge, and now his punishment was more akin to isolation, than torture.

Ears pricking at the sound of her daintier footfalls, Lotor stirs himself from his perched position on his cot. With a happy smile that suited her so well, she brandished a human breakfast muffin in her fingers. Going to put it into the secure meal hatch, a frown pulls at her face as she notices a backlog of discarded trays, all untouched.

“I had to smuggle this in.” She says, placing it into the hatch, “You know, starving yourself will not help matters, Lotor.”

It is with curiosity, rather than hunger that Lotor plucks up the muffin and stares at it inquisitively. “Where do they come up with these things?” He muses, “I’m afraid find myself quite without an appetite.”

He rolls it around in his hand tiredly. Things really could not be worse for him if they tried. Solitude, Lotor had been used to once, and could become used to again. Captivity, would suffocate him. His very being told him that he needed to fly, and explore, ever since he was a boy, and now, there was this energy inside him, longing to be free.

His life in captivity would be, he considered with a sigh, long. So very long. He might as well have been dead already. Sometimes, he hoped that some human solider would poison his food, or shoot him while he slept. Then he would not have to satisfy himself with woeful glimpses of her smiling through the glass. 

Allura wants to ask him if he is alright, then again, she knows better than to ask. His soul is dying in here, she can feel it in his aura.

“You know, if you waste away, you’re only giving the bastards what they want.” She says coyly, “We can’t have that.”

That earns her a twitch of his lips. “No indeed.” He says, “Although I see little point in attempting to uphold my reputation.”

“Well, I for one, find your reputation quite alluring.” She says, “And I wouldn’t abandon it just yet. I wanted to be the first to inform you of some good news.”

He relents under her gaze, and takes a bite from the breakfast muffin. “Do tell?”

She’s trying to be poised, but there’s something intriguing shining through, something he cannot tear his eyes from. “New Altea want me to be queen. Isn’t that wonderful?”

That did make Lotor smile.

“Then, please accept my utmost congratulations, my Queen.” He says with a somewhat overly-gracious bow.

“Although I don’t think they intend to reinstate the monarchy as it once was.” She says, “There is a democratic parliamentary system, and the monarch remains in service to the state. It’s not an autocracy any more. But I think that’s a change I can support.” She says, “There’s, a lot to arrange. We’ll be departing in two quintants.”

“That’s excellent news.”

“Yes!”

His hand is so much larger than hers on the glass, it distracts her a moment from his quizzical face.

“But, that’s not entirely what you came here to say?”

There’s more, he knows, she’s brimming with it.

Allura smiles. “You see right through me at the best of times, am I that transparent?”

He gives her a flicker of a smirk. “Only occasionally.”

“This must be an occasion then.” She says, clasping her hands together, “Lotor,” she says, “the High Circle have made an important decision, about the finer terms of your imprisonment.”

He pulls a face. “I am flattered.”

“Don’t be sarcastic.” She tells him, “They have very generously offered you a choice in how you would like to serve your sentence.”

Lotor’s frustration gets the better of him then.

“Is that to be a cell with a sea view or a cell with an ensuite?” He rolls his eyes with a snarl.

“Lotor!” She snaps, “The High Circle want to recognise your role in the prosperity of New Altea. You founded it, and fought to ensure its survival.” She pauses, “They think you’re impossible, but they think you’re irreplaceable, too. And wasted in a jail cell. You may decide to live out your sentence in a secure jail if you wished to.”

His eyes are following hers astutely. “There’s another option?”

“Yes, if you wanted it.” She is hesitating, biting her lip in an unsure manner.

“And, what is it?”

Her fingers curl against the glass where their hands met but could not touch. “Do you really want to marry me?” She asks him, heart hammering in her chest, “Because, if you do, they’d allow it. You could be free, if you were my husband.”

You’d be with me, she thinks to herself. After all this time terrified of the day they would be torn apart, they could live like they’d dreamed.

“Don’t you see what this means?” She says gleefully.

Lotor’s eyes narrow as he takes in the information, then attempt to read hers. No matter how he tries to appear serene, shock leaks out at the seams. It would be a cage. A gilded cage, but a cage nonetheless. He’d saved their kind from extinction, and built them a world in which to prosper with his ‘terrible’ ways. And they wanted him neutralised, in a thinly-veiled insult.

Allura would be a queen, and he wouldn’t hinder her for any world. He could even stand in her shadow. But.

“I wouldn’t have any say in anything.” He says sullenly, “I’d be –” He struggles to find the word, “decorative.”

Wrestling with the finer points of his pride, Lotor bit his lip. What was he possibly to expect? He was destined for a cage. Be it a gilded one in plain sight, a penitentiary one, or one deep beneath the soil. He hadn’t honestly expected that any of them might try to understand why he did what he did. Then again, he reminded himself, that in peacetime, those sorts of expectations were quite unrealistic.

And New Altea didn’t want him any more than the Galra had.

Allura’s visible hurt prompts him to remove his thoughts from his face immediately.

“I wouldn’t put it like that.” She says, and then nothing else will come out of her mouth. He’s right, she knows. The easiest way to ensure Lotor couldn’t accrue his own power, was to annex it to hers, and keeping him where they could see him. She supposed that the High Circle had already calculated that his offspring would be her offspring, and there would not be any arguments over the rightful ruler. She puffs her cheeks in derision. Allura hated the reason, but the result, that would be beautiful.

“If you were my husband you’d have diplomatic immunity, and the Coalition couldn’t say you were a threat anymore. The Galra Empire is gone.”

Allura had ruled alone before, in her father’s place, and she would do it again. But she wants Lotor by her side. More than she has ever wanted anything. And the more that she stares at his world falling apart, the more her heart breaks.

“Please consider it!” She begs him when he does nothing but frown, “We can be together, finally, no questions asked! This is the best possible outcome.”

“It’s the best possible outcome for you!”

Lotor regrets it the moment it comes out of his mouth, and suddenly he has a headache pounding at his skull from the inside out.

“What in the heavens do you mean?”

“Think about it Allura.” He says, bitterness raging, “You said it yourself, your own mother had next to no power as a royal consort, and she was universally adored. Why would it be any different for me?”

“I would make it different!”

“How?” He roars, “Not even the people whose lives I saved can bring themselves enough to trust me!”

Oh, she thinks. That’s what this is about.

“And that’s a big ask, considering what you did!” 

He stares at her defensively, and while his outward expression is numb, the weight of his emotion in that wayward, repressed aura is enough to crush her. He pretended that these things did not bother him, but she knew that they did, very deep down. He remains, she thinks, the most skilled mask-wearer she has ever met.

“Lotor…” She says softly, pressing her hand to the glass again, yearning to comfort him even just a little, “I know you long for a home, where you feel accepted, and loved. Those happy, safe Alteans with food in their stomachs will never understand the hardships that drove you. But it won’t matter, because I love you and I accept you, and I can give you that home if you let me.”

Her voice tears him into pieces. In that moment he can forget about power, and his pride, no matter what he might think of being just a consort. Worse, just a discarded part of Altean history. 

“I can keep you _safe._” A tear bites at the corner of her eye, “_I can’t protect you in a jail cell_.”

His pragmatic side punches him in the ribs. For him, it was not a bad deal at all. He could rot in a cell, never to fly again, or he could concede, marry the woman he loved, and live comfortably.

But.

His heart falls.

Whatever this arrangement is to him, it is not beneficial to her. 

“Have you considered Allura?” He asks, “The citizens of New Altea may not know what I did but the rest of the universe certainly does. If you marry me, no world leader will ever show you respect again.”

“Of course I’ve considered it, I’ve done nothing but consider it.” She says, “Plenty of world leaders showed you respect when you were the Emperor of the Galra.” She folds her arms over her chest, “And it wasn’t because they liked your choices.”

“It was because they feared me. Do you want to be feared?”

“Only by some people.” She says curtly, before rolling her eyes at his raised eyebrow, “Lotor, you wouldn’t be powerless. Some time would have to pass, but then everyone would get used to the idea.”

“So they can see that I’m under your thumb?”

Truth weighs down on Allura’s tired shoulders, and she pinches at her brow as if it would somehow relieve her of this nightmare.

“You would, have to demonstrate a certain submissiveness, at first.” He rolls his eyes at her again, “At first! It wouldn’t always be like that.”

“What we long for cannot be, Allura. We’ve always known that.”

“Please Lotor, let me do this for you!” She argues, “Let me give you the life you deserve, please!”

“And what is it that I deserve?” He demands, “For I do not think that even you could tell me.”

She is silent at that.

“Do not ask me to drag you into the depths of despair.” He says, “I can give you nothing, but misfortune and mockery.” He turns his shoulder to her, “You deserve better.”

“Don’t you bloody dare!” She says, “We’ve been through too much, to give up now!”

His eyes divert away from hers in something akin to shame. From the very first time he’d kissed her, Lotor knew he had allowed everything to go too far. It was too wonderful for words, and it was a dream he couldn’t have. It wasn’t logical, or pragmatic. They weren’t in the Rift anymore, free to do as they pleased with nobody to judge them. That time with her had been a gift, and it had come to an end. He’d been too soft to do the right thing for too long now, and now she was going to suffer for it, if he let it.

“You’re angry.”

Her fists curl, but she swallows down her shock. “I, did not envisage a scenario where you would say no to an opportunity like this.”

“We are playing a game that we cannot win. And it is time that we put duty first.” He hangs his head low, refusing to look her in the eye, “You will be a wonderful queen.”

Nausea bubbles in her abdomen, and Allura wants so badly to sit down, but there isn’t anywhere to. 

“Fine!” She says, turning on her heel, “I’ll go!”

‘_Let me know when you’ve come to your senses_.’ She thinks, but isn’t quite cruel enough to say.

* * *

Allura only feels worse and worse as she makes her way back towards her chambers. Her vambrace bleeps at her, and she pauses to accept the call.

“Princess, you’re wanted in the dining room.” Coran says, and Allura scrapes her feelings from her face.

“I don’t suppose there’s any chance of a tray instead?” She asks, pressing a hand to her stomach, “I’m feeling absolutely ghastly.”

“No time for that I’m afraid. Keith seems to have dug up more guests for you to meet.”

“Urgh.” She grumbles. Keith didn’t want to deal with her himself so he had found some other diplomats to do so on his behalf, “Alright. Now?”

“Now as ever is.”

She supposed that a little bland food might encourage her stomach to settle down.

So much for Keith finding someone else to occupy her time. She is only just onto the upper restricted decks, when he manages to accost her.

“Allura!” He says, completely blocking the corridor, “Could I have a quick word?”

“Could we do this another time Keith?” She says, “I’m already late.”

“Just hear me out.” He says, “I wanted to say that I’m sorry.”

Allura pauses. There was something that she wasn’t expecting to hear today.

“I’ve been awful to you Allura. Ever since you got back I’ve been filled with nothing but anger and resentment. I took that out on you, and,” he sighs with a roll of his eyes, “and on Lotor. Things, haven’t been straightforward for me. Looking after Shiro and running this ship, hasn’t exactly left me in the best of places.” 

“You’re looking after him on your own?”

Keith nods. “He can’t manage on his own now at all. He needs feeding, dressing, and so much more that I just don’t want to mention. The doctors say there’s nothing to be done. I feel I owe it to him, you know? I can’t just give up on him.” He sighs. “At least I’m trying not to, but he needs more help than I can give him now. That’s why he’s so bitter.” He says, “It’s not his fault. The man he was, the Shiro we know, is ninety-nine percent gone.”

“It’s not your fault either.” She says, resting a kind hand on his shoulder, “He’s lucky to have you.”

“You wouldn’t know it.” He says, “But, believe it or not, he does have the odd lucid moment. What he said at dinner made me realise that I wasn’t coping with things. I try to drink it away, and when I do, I’m not at my best.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

He shakes his head. “Not unless you can clone several of me.”

“I’m sure I could, but I’m not sure that’s the answer.” 

“I can’t give up the ship.” He says, “Not yet anyway. It’s the only thing left that gives me purpose. And I can’t give up on Shiro, either. I’ve tried carers, he throws things at all of them.”

“You’ve a burden of leadership, and a burden of care.” She says, “I think you’ve made the decisions you have, because you care. Sometimes that’s hard for other people to see. Perhaps, before I go, I could sit with him for a bit? So you could get some things done?”

He gives her a small crooked smile. “Thank you Allura.” He says, “I am truly sorry for what I said. I hope we can be friends going forwards?”

She nods with a smile. “Be sure to join me for a drink before I disembark, and we’ll toast him together.”

“That would be nice.” He says, “I’ve decided I am going to make active changes to mellow my hostility. Starting with these two.” He gestures to the dining room door, “Just, please forgive me if I don’t stay.”

“I’ll let you off.” She says, “Although you will only be able to blame yourself when Lance gives me his side of the story first.”

Before Keith is sure whether or not he can dignify that with an answer, there is a very loud, ugly grumbling sound hanging in the air between them. Allura had been so engrossed in Keith’s honesty, that she had almost forgotten her raging stomach. It lets out an awful gurgle, and her hand shoots to muffle the noise, for all the good it did.

“Are you alright?” Keith asks, “You look pale.”

“I don’t think last night’s salmon agreed with me.” She says, “I’ll be fine.” It gurgles again, and she gives an embarrassed grin, “I hope.”

It was not fine, not even remotely fine.

By time that Allura does finally make it to the dining room, she is feeling so sick that she wonders whether she ought to be carrying out this engagement at all.

She makes it as far as ten paces. Waiting for her in the dining room are two figures, one short and female, with a scarf tied over her head, and the other taller and, balding. Lance and Pidge were finally here, just to see her. Romelle wouldn’t, but there certainly was no love lost there.

Allura is so happy, a beaming ray of sunshine in this gloomy ship. 

“Urgh, she looks so young.” Pidge murmurs under her breath, “Why don’t we still look like that?”

“She was always gonna outlive us anyway.” Lance mutters back, sucking in his beer gut, “And speak for yourself. I am looking fantastic!”

Between them, they grin, and then stare, as a very pale, but larger than life Allura, strides towards them, thinks better of it, and then legs it in the other direction, clutching at her stomach.

Lance blinks at the hypothetical trail of smoke she might as well have left behind her. “Uh, what just happened?”

Pidge peers at him over her glasses with a sneer. “Clearly, you don’t look as fantastic as you think you do.”

* * *

Allura barely makes it to a lavatory before vomit is spewing from her mouth. She collapses onto her knees and buries her head deep inside the pan before she can even lock the cubicle door. She hadn’t even eaten much, for Feyiv’s sake. She gets one or two breaths in before more comes, burning at her throat and leaving a foul taste in her mouth.

She is somewhat aware of somebody behind her, scooping her hair out of the way as she vomits, and she is already indefinitely grateful to this person, whoever it was. Palms pale and sweaty, she grabs the sides of the bowl to support herself, while that someone gives her a pat on the back.

“There you are.” The stranger’s voice says as the vomit finally seems to stop coming. “You’ll feel a lot better for that.”

Gasping for breath, Allura twists her head up to catch a glimpse of a green headscarf covering an all but bare head. “P-Pidge?” She stutters, wondering if her stomach was going to avail itself of any further contents.

“The one and only.” She says, offering Allura a handful of loo roll, “Although nobody calls me that anymore. You okay?”

“Urgh.” She wipes her mouth, “No. Just-” Allura takes a breath and wills another wave of nausea down, “I just need a dobosh.”

“Okay.” She says, “I’ve got you. We can hang out here as long as you like.”

“I’m so sorry…” She says, leaning forward as she felt more bile travel up her throat, “I’ve let you all down.”

“You haven’t let us down!” Pidge says, “Quite honestly, we’re all just glad you’re alive.”

Patting her mouth with some more loo roll, Allura shakily gets to her feet.

“Come on.” She says, looping Allura’s arm over her shoulder, “Let’s get you back to bed.”

With her arm around Pidge’s shoulder, Allura wobbles back towards her quarters, fortunately unseen by almost everyone. They must have been a comical sight, Allura was still a good eight inches taller than Pidge, and she wouldn’t like to say how much heavier.

“Alright, I have to ask.” Allura says as they go, “What happened between Lance and Keith?”

“Oh my God.” Pidge laughs, “No one’s told you?”

“No.” She says, “Oh my gosh will you please just tell me?!”

Pidge gives her a wicked grin. “Oh, it’s good alright. We’re getting you back to bed first though.”

“I can’t believe it.” Allura moans, “I see you guys for the first time in deca-phoebs, and I get food poisoning.”

“Sure, food poisoning.” Pidge grins, “Like I’ve heard that one a million times!”

At that, Allura seems to lose all sense of direction. Her legs stop working, her world stops.

“What’s up?” Pidge asks, “Allura?”

Allura doesn’t hear her, or anything, for that matter.

“Hey, Allura, that’s not funny,” she says as she takes more and more of the Altean woman’s weight, “I seriously can’t carry you back. Allura!”

All Allura can think about, as her world fades into black, is that she has just taken legal action against a human medical facility for running a pregnancy test against her will. How on Earth was she to go back and ask for another?

* * *

The Atlas pharmacy is far too crowded a place for any kind of privacy. Not that Pidge particularly cared. She had asked for many awkward things during her lifetime, pregnancy tests being but a few of them. But as the words come out of her mouth, she can feel the entire pharmacy’s eyes burning into her back.

“I need, uh, a, um. A pregnancy test, please.”

The old woman, who had had three children, uterine cancer, a hysterectomy, and chemotherapy and the headscarf to prove it, was asking for a pregnancy test.

Things could only get better.

The nurse at the dispensary eyes her up and down in a way that makes her feel quite violated. “At your age?”

Pidge growls under her breath. “Yes, at my age.”

The nurse shrugs, her very nonchalance all-out screaming ‘I doubt it love’.

“I make bad life choices, alright?” She says exasperatedly, “Just please give me the test.”

“I’ll say.” She says, slamming a box down on the counter. “That’ll be $20 Ma'am.”

Pidge was only too happy to slam it down in front of Allura when she got back to the princess’ private quarters. “You owe me.”

“I do.” She says meekly, “Thank you so much, Pidge. I've, really needed a friend these last few quintants.”

Allura was in no mood to take the test now. If she was pregnant, there would be no denying it with a stick right in front of Pidge. No. The world couldn’t know for sure, not even Pidge. Not until she had made some decisions.

“Can I ask? It’s Lotor’s, right?”

“I might not be pregnant.” Allura snaps tiredly, hiding the test away in a drawer, “But, _if_ I am, yes. It’s Lotor’s.” She sighs, “Who else’s would it be?”

Pidge seems to find that mildly entertaining. “So did your condom break, or what?” She asks, perching on Allura’s bed.

“_No_.”

“What, no protection?” Pidge asks, “Never thought I’d be the one giving you this kind of advice Allura, but what were you playing at?”

Allura is lost for words at that. “We, thought it wasn’t biologically possible.” She says, uncomfortable under Pidge’s raised eyebrow, “Lotor can’t – isn’t supposed to be able to have children.”

“Then allow me to be the first one to congratulate you on the miracle conception.”

“It’s not funny Pidge.” She says, curling her knees up under the covers hoping that they'd swallow her up, “Children weren’t in my life plans.”

“Mine neither.”

Allura pauses for thought.

“You, have children?”

She holds up three fingers. “My husband wanted them.”

Allura grips at her duvet. “You have a husband?!”

“That you find surprising?”

“Sorry.” Allura says, “I just, never imagined it. You, doing the nuclear family thing.”

“Me neither, I guess.” She says, “Life just, throws you stuff sometimes. I mean I, gave up a lot for it. More than I wanted to, really. My career, that went just like that. It doesn’t matter how many people tell you you can do a career and kids, at the end of the day, men can’t push the damned things out, and they can’t breastfeed.”

Allura glances at her face, and the thought that Pidge seemed to be lost in. “Pidge, forgive me for asking, but,” she wets her lip, “do you have regrets?”

Pidge’s fist curls in the bedding. “Yes.” She says, “Don’t get me wrong, I love them. I do, but, when you have kids, you lose parts of yourself that make you, you. It’s the same when you get married.”

“What’s your husband like?”

“Ex-husband.” She says sadly, “Before I realised I had cancer, sex was becoming painful, and, before we knew it, it just fizzled out. He found someone else who could, and I signed the papers and moved on.” She takes a sip of the water Allura had offered her as recompense for her help, “I’m sorry.” She says, “I don’t even know why I’m telling you this stuff.”

“It’s okay.” Allura says, clinging to her belly as it continued to rage, “And I’m so sorry.”

“I’m not. I got to really mess up his research shuttle.” She says, finishing the glass, “So, what about you? If, it’s positive, what will you do?”

Heat prickles in Allura’s clammy fingertips. She wanted to tell Pidge, really she did. That she couldn’t go through with it. That in her heart of hearts, she would rather be dead. She can’t say that. What sort of reasonable person says that? Most people rejoice at the prospect of procreating. Her mother might have said something that translated along the lines of ‘you’re a non-woman’, for proclaiming such nonsense. Perhaps she was.

Allura didn’t know what she would do. She really didn’t.

Other than wish she had been successful that day on Sincline.

“Well,” she lies, glancing at her belly and gathering herself, “I’m sure I shall have it and be quite content.” 

* * *


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's taken so long to get this up, work has been crazy, and I'm not convinced this is of the best quality, but here you all go. 
> 
> I've been a tumblr-lurker for a while now and I've been really happy to see the odd post about this story, which is just awesome. Particular thanks to claireclaymore, your kermit on fire meme made me smile at the end of a really tough day.

* * *

Lotor does not even want to look her in the eye when she goes to tell him that evening. She has tried to disguise her red and blotchy face as best she can, but he was going to see it sooner or later. Ancients, she feels like such a fool.

He’s curled up on that cot that is far too small for him, his back to her. From the rise and fall of his chest, she can tell that he’s awake. She had hoped to find him sleeping. It would be better than the bitterness of his rejection.

“You cannot even look at me?” She asks him, “Was my proposal so disgusting to you?” 

Lotor closes his eyes, and curls himself into a ball. Looking at her cannot help. Cannot change anything. Seeing her, hearing her voice, even feeling her energy made everything worse. All that was left was her scent, painfully absent from her ensemble from behind the glass.

He remembered when he realised how small it was, that he could touch both walls with each hand, and not even extend his elbows. He had pressed against them, in some vague and pointless manner, as if he could make his cell bigger. But walls do not budge, and this was not a cell that he would ever talk his way out of. He had bitten back the emotion that rose up his throat, and tried to imagine stars as he slept.

This was what his universe had been shrunken into.

It had been a long time since he had been able to use his power freely. It sizzled under his skin, even more riled by his captivity, and he knew that all it would take was the tiniest thought and a touch from his fingertips could shatter the reinforced glass with ease.

No. He had folded his hands under his armpits many times. He didn’t need to give anyone another reason to kill him. He’d been happily unaccustomed to having alchemic abilities before, and he would have to be content with it again.

Perhaps, he thinks, if he shuts things out, his mind will become small too, and he will not notice. 

“The wardens told me that you’ve been ill.” She says, “Is there anything I can do?”

Headaches were becoming a normal part of his routine, and dizzy spells, not uncommonly. Some mild, some more taxing, and this one was throbbing in his ears. He had put the nausea down to poor human food that his gut hadn’t had a chance to adjust to, but he hadn’t actually vomited until last night. Nothing he would bother concerning her with, of course. Whatever it was, would pass.

It’s easier to pretend that she isn’t there, and so that’s what he does. 

“I thought I might see if I couldn’t get you transferred back into the medical bay.” She continues when he doesn’t answer, “At least it’s a little more comfortable in there.”

Allura sighs. If only she could touch him, she thinks, a kind stroke of his cheek, or his hair, something to reassure him that he still meant the world to her, whatever chivalrous nonsense he was trying to pull. Alas, small talk alone did not seem to be enough to rouse him from his state of despondency.

“Lotor…” She says, “I wanted to say I’m sorry, for snapping at you.”

More trays of food lie discarded, some with great globules of mould growing on them. Why the staff didn’t just take them away, Allura cannot fathom.

“I just, I can’t _understand._ What we’ve been through, what we’ve survived, all that adversity. You once said to me that we were meant to be together and I believe that you were right. Our energy fits, I know you can feel it.”

His stomach flips. “I’m not going to be your trophy husband, Allura. I am not cut out for that.”

“Really?” She jests with a twitch of a smile, in a feeble attempt to lighten the mood, “I think you’d make a fantastic one.”

He doesn’t dignify that with an answer.

“You are more than capable of being Queen by yourself.” He says, muffling it into the sheets.

“I should bloody well think so!” She scoffs, “But that isn’t the point. I want you with me because you are the person I love more than anything in this world.”

He grumbles words she cannot hear in response.

“Moreover, you can stop pretending that this is about me.” She says, “When we both know that this is about you.”

“You think wrong.” He mutters, digging his cheek into the mattress as if he thought she would somehow pull him towards her like a puppet on a string.

But he feels her touch the glass, like she had just touched his skin.

“You’re, always believing that you’re not worthy of affection.” She says softly, “You look confident, and calculating, and you are. You might pretend that you don’t, but you punish yourself over and over for things that lie long in the past. What matters now is the future.”

It seemed so ironic, that just as the Altean people prepared to welcome him home, that that was when he felt the least accepted. Allura feels utterly lost in the fact that Lotor craved an understanding that not even she would be able to provide for him.

“And yet someone must be punished.” he says, his mouth completely dry by now, “Someone must take the fall.”

“Then serve New Altea with me. Let that be your penance!” The love for her mate burns in her chest. “You’re closer than you’ve ever been to going home, really going home. And-” she pauses with a wipe of her lip, “I think perhaps it’s scaring you more than you thought it would.”

He grunts at her, and he is sure that she is rolling her eyes. Thank Feyiv that she cannot see the tear that slides down his cheek and into the sheet. 

She feels it though, every one of his tears, each one enough to stab her through the chest.

“It’s a dream.” He says, “It’s always been a dream to me. Something intangible that cannot possibly exist in reality. I want it more than I can say.” He blinks another tear away, “But what I want does not matter.”

“Yes it _does_!” She insists, “What you want is just as important as what I want or what anybody wants! And,” she checks herself to make sure her mouth isn’t visible from the cameras, “I’d rather break you out of here and run away right now than ever be Queen if you aren’t with me.”

Running away, Lotor thinks. What a refreshing thought.

But it changes nothing.

“Lotor.” Allura says firmly when he doesn’t stir, “Look at me.” 

He could be downright stubborn when he wanted to be.

“Look at me!” She insists, emotion constricting at her throat and strangling her voice, “Look at me, or I swear to the Sages you will regret it if you don’t!”

Still he ignores her, his back to her, staring daggers into the opposite wall.

He couldn’t do this to her.

“_Lotor!_”

Her screech shreds deafeningly at his ears, her eyes are red with tears and she is so full of rage that she cannot speak. Her hands quiver. She was a flaming beacon of despair, and he couldn’t even see it.

She could not be alone, not now, like this.

“I don’t have food poisoning.”

Her fingers lift, daft in the air, before coming to brush over her belly, just in time for him to get off his cot and see what they’d both so stupidly done without a care in the world.

And he stares with bloodshot eyes. Cold and clammy, he stares. She only wished that she weren’t crying, if only to see the finer detail of his face losing its cool indifference.

Allura stands and watches, as Lotor raises his hand to the glass, for a moment contemplating whether he could break it, and shatter the divide between them. Eyes somewhere not near or far.

Blood rushes in his ears, and he crumples into a heap on the floor with an uncomfortable gasp.

* * *

Seeing Lotor back in the medical bay was some sort of relief for Allura.

There are no cameras in here, no glass. The doctors and nurses bustle initially, hooking him up to an IV and pumping drugs into him in an exhausted flurry, more than once or twice eyeing Allura up with suspicion as she watches them work. They don’t expect her to stay, or perhaps even care. Even Jeanie gives her a somewhat odd stare, before deciding to break the ice she had spread before.

“Could I get someone to bring you a cup of tea?” She asks, her ponytail brushing over her shoulder as she increases the IV infusion rate, “You look like you need one.”

Allura smiles with a sigh. “I’m sure I do.” She says, “At this rate I will have been offered so much tea that to drink it all would result in my permanent fixation on the lavatory.”

The girl lets out a giggle, but in her eyes still lurks a hint of surprise. Jeanie could not believe that Allura could really love Lotor, and it became ever more offensive by the minute.

“What exactly is supposed to be wrong with him?” She pries, “He looks like he’s on death’s door.”

“It’s hardly an exciting diagnosis.” She says reassuringly, “Just gastroenteritis. He’ll be fine.”

There’s a tremor in his hand, which Allura covers and silences with her own. “Could I have some time alone with Prince Lotor?” She asks, “Please?”

Another saccharine grin. “Of course.” She says, “Ring if you need anything.” 

Allura wastes no time in pulling the blinds down so that no one can see them once the nurse is gone. Contenting herself that they would not be overheard, she scooted herself onto the bed beside him, and took him into her arms.

Pressing soft kisses to the ears and eyelids of her mate and tasting the slight salty perspiration, she is sure that he leans into her, in and out of consciousness, his vitals peeping steadily on the monitors. He must be more ill than she had thought. She had put his lack of eating down to his stubbornness, perhaps he had been hiding this for a while now.

“Do you want anything?” She asks, “I can get her to bring you something?”

He waves his head from side to side. “I think I had better not.” He croaks, “Whatever they’re giving me is making me feel worse, not better.”

“I’m sure things will start to feel better soon.” She says, “I can’t bear the thought of you being miserable.”

Startling with a squeak in her throat, Allura looks down to see Lotor’s clammy hand cover her belly gently, to hear him sigh against her.

“Perhaps I am more ill than I imagine.” He rasps, “I don’t suppose you’d consider telling me I’m hallucinating?”

“No. Oh, I didn’t want to tell you like this.” She says exasperatedly, stroking his temple with a cool cloth, “I’m struggling to believe that all of this isn’t all just one terrible nightmare that I’ll wake up from soon.”

Allura’s anxiety snakes its way up Lotor’s nostrils, and for a while at least, it is enough to divert him from his nausea. He had never felt her fear like this, not even in the face of death. It made him want to hold her to him like they were both still in Sincline.

“My darling,” he begins, having given up on all hope of prying himself away from her, “you do not want this.”

Her hand covers his. “But, I think, you do.” She utters with a sniff.

Lotor swallowed back a lump in his throat. He had gotten so used to the idea that he could not produce any offspring, that whether he wanted them or not was completely irrelevant.

When he had been very young, before he knew that he supposedly couldn’t reproduce, Lotor had from time to time wondered, if perhaps he might offer a child a better life than his father had offered him. And then he hadn’t cause to wonder any more.

“Am I wrong?”

It was her career it would destroy, her body it would distort, not his.

“Allura.” He whispers, for this is all his voice will stretch to, “Listen to me. You are more important than _any_ unborn child. You must promise me that you will only choose to have this child, if you truly want it. Forget the throne, and me. What I want does not matter.”

Allura feels sick herself. Those words again, so carelessly spoken, and so sincerely meant.

“But, this is bigger than me.” She says, “This is a chance to, have an heir. Between us we might be too infertile to have another. And, Lotor, if you were the father to the heir to the Altean throne your status would be undisputed.”

There she goes again. Thinking of others, and never herself. It was enough to make him weep.

“Do you see? And, perhaps this will give you the purpose you desire.”

She is trying to hold it together, but the weight of everything was pushing at the seams, brimming and boiling over in the form of hot salty tears.

“What I desire my love, more than anything in the universe, is to see you happy.” He says cupping her face with his other hand, “And if the thought of having this baby makes you feel this way, then I do not want you to go through with it.”

“My mother always said it was the ultimate duty of a queen.” She sniffs, “She said that when the time came I would know to do that duty too.”

Tears bite at his eyes too, and then a thought strikes him. Lotor wonders, if his own mother hadn’t felt that terrible burden of duty, might she have never gone in search of a quintessence source to maintain such a pregnancy?

To gain another, to lose oneself, Lotor pondered. So many women did. Perhaps Haggar, in part, was a release from the unwanted ties that bound her to motherhood.

“I cannot terminate the life of a royal heir, just because I am too frightened.”

“These are not the days of our mothers.” He says, “We have to be the change we wish to see, isn’t that what you said to me once? If you do not want to do this, then you do not have to.”

“How?” She sobs, “Queens don’t have – _do that_.”

Queens were stronger than that.

Suddenly, Allura realises that she isn’t worthy of this honour the Altean people are giving her at all.

“What would the point be, Lotor?” She says, leaning her head against his, “To restore a monarchy to a completely self-sufficient planet, only to have it snuffed out in one generation? I would be a self-serving fraud. My duty is to the Altean people now.”

A terrible protectiveness bubbles in Lotor’s chest. “What does your advisor say?”

Surely the old man, as cantankerous as he could be, would have Allura’s best interests at heart.

“I cannot tell him!” She laments, “I’m fairly sure he’s been knitting garments for my offspring for hundreds of deca-phoebs.”

He’d love the idea, Allura just knows it. He’d love having little prince or princess to dote on, and dress, and rock to sleep. Allura only wishes that she could summon that amount of enthusiasm.

“Talk to him.” Lotor reassures her, “He loves you enough to put you first.”

Offering the tiniest smile, Allura knew that Lotor was right.

* * *

No sooner than Allura had gone, were the nurses back again. Bustling around, and mostly ignoring him. Thank Feyiv that they did. He didn’t want anyone to see him as he was now. One of them took his blood pressure, and another blood sample. One stared into his eyes with a light, before announcing that he wasn’t improving, and that the doctors would review him shortly.

He lies quietly in the dark then, the vague outlines of various pieces of equipment swimming in his vision. All the while he cannot quite feel enough at peace to drop off. Biologically, it was a marvel. It could be a joyous occasion that would cement his place in the hierarchy of New Altea forever.

At the price of Allura’s happiness, of course.

An all too costly one that he wasn’t willing to pay.

Had Allura been right when she had suggested that he might want a child? She was kind to invite his opinions, but they really were not his to give. Lotor decided that he lacked any hermaphrodite capabilities that might qualify him to an opinion on the matter. Of the two of them, only she could labour to being a child into the world, and she would never be able to be a queen regnant and raise a child, that much was certain.

And what, he asked himself, would he know about child-rearing in any case?

His hand tightened in the sheets. If she thought he wanted it, she might feel that she had to have it, and she would resent him for life. Lotor would never forgive himself if she did.

Thoughts flew around in his mind quicker than he could contemplate.

He is disturbed by the sound of someone unlocking the door, and flicking the lights on into his unprepared eyes.

“Sorry.” Says a nurse, the one he thinks Allura referred to as Jeanie earlier, as she clatters through the door with a large trolley not far behind her. “There’s no good way to manoeuvre this thing around.”

Lotor tries to bury his head into the pillow to escape the lights that dazzled from above.

“What’s this?”

She parks the trolley by his bedside and applies the brakes. “The doctors are concerned you aren’t making the progress they’d hoped for.” She says, tightening the straps that kept Lotor attached to the bed when Allura was not around. “Turns out you’re quite a bit sicker than they’d thought.”

He grunts aimlessly. Not sick enough to think that he wouldn’t clout her, obviously.

She stops before the restraints become uncomfortable, and rests her hands against the trolley.

“Your Royal Highness,” She begins, “your blood tests from today show that this illness is starting to attack your liver and your kidneys, which means that toxins aren’t being removed from your bloodstream like they should be. We’ve being trying to treat you conventionally, but the doctors have decided that it would be better for you to go into a healing pod, which will perform those functions for you until you’ve recovered.”

Lotor’s instant thought is good, let them put him under, perhaps then he won’t have to endure the shitshow that his life had become.

“I’m needed here.” He says simply, although he has no idea what he is going to say if she actually asks why.

“I know.” She says, “But you’re no use to anybody like this.”

Lotor doesn’t answer. He isn’t of use to anybody anymore.

A healing pod meant a short period of induced cryostasis. The idea was to slow the metabolism down so that treatment could commence with minimal damage and suffering to the occupant. Lotor hated cryostasis. He had avoided it like the plague for the majority of his life, and loathed it whenever physicians told him to was necessary. The last time had been when he was two hundred or so deca-phoebs old, and an opponent in the arena had run him through with a saber blade. He had awoken with a small scar, and with such cramped muscles that he hadn’t been able to walk for movements.

“And, this way,” Jeanie continues, “you can be back, fighting fit to sweep the princess off her feet.”

He rolls his eyes at her, and she promptly shuts up.

“Just get on with it.” He says, turning his head away from the arm he knows she’s going to use to pump drugs into him.

It wasn’t like he had a choice.

* * *

When Allura’s restless fingers tap on Coran’s door later that evening, she finds him cross-legged on his bed, already clad in pyjamas and dressing gown, with a glass of red wine, and a pair of rollers carefully set into his moustache.

The sight is comforting, somehow. It was as if nothing had changed, not since she was a very little girl.

“Can I come in?” She asks, peeking around the door as if she were still that same little girl.

A weary smile on his face tells her that perhaps she would still be able to sneak to his room for comfort and advice, whether she were six, sixty or six-hundred. “If I say no would it stop you?”

She gives him a look. “Of course not.” She says, “But I like to remain polite.”

“Being polite might have included waiting for an answer after you knocked.” He says with a lop-sided grin, “Then again, you never were easy to educate.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.” She says. She never would have forgotten something so ridiculously basic before. A soft laugh escapes her as she finds a place to perch on the end of his bed. “You might not what I have to say quite so surprising then.”

“Quiffle,” he says, folding away his human newspaper, “What’s the matter?”

“Why do you suppose something is the matter?”

“Because when you barge in here like a skittish elephant, there’s always something the matter.”

Allura purses her lips. “Will you promise not to judge me?” She says, “I don’t think I could bear it if you did.”

“My dear,” he says, “I have been knocking around for nearly seven hundred deca-phoebs, there is little to nothing you could do that would surprise me. And even less I’d judge you for, come to think of it.”

Just then, quite without warning, the words seem to tumble from her mouth in a muted whisper. If not now, how would she ever work herself up to telling him? She couldn’t bear to go around and around in circles of useless words any more, she just couldn’t.

“_I’m pregnant_.”

Coran blinks, and wrinkles his nose with a deep breath inwards, like he’d misheard something with the potential to have catastrophic consequences.

“You, er… What did you say?”

“I’m, um,” she swallows the lump arising in her throat, mouthing the next word because her own ears cannot stand to hear it.

She watches with bated breath as he processes this, tilting his head and folding his arms in such a tight manner that it could not be comfortable, and Allura cannot help but think he was going to start spouting steam out of his ears.

For his subsequent mood, he might as well have torpedoed himself off the walls and into deep space.

“Oh my gosh why that’s wonderful news!!!!!”

Oh Ancients there he goes.

“Oh! That’s just brilliant! Superb! Splendid! Magnificent! Quiffle I can’t even begin to tell you…”

‘_Oh no_,’ she thinks. She knew this was going to happen. 

“But there’s so much to do! There’s cots, and highchairs, and clothes, I haven’t even finished the bootie set that I started deca-phoeb! And we’ll have to have an official announcement! We need to make some plans-”

Coming down from his fantasy cloud, Coran sees Allura trying not to look bothered at the foot of the bed, and her frown sucks the wind out of his sails. 

“What is it?”

“I am, a leader, and a diplomat, and an alchemist. I know that I can serve New Altea faithfully as its queen, it seems in all ways except one.” She says in a thickened voice, “I know in my heart of hearts that I am not a mother, Coran. I know it’s what I’m supposed to want to do, and I know I’m supposed to provide a legacy in an heir. But I…” She shakes her head, “I know what I want, and this isn’t it.”

“Quiffle…” his hand finds her shoulder as she loses all composure and bursts into tears, “Now now, none of that.”

Allura was supposed to have a mother, and a father that could see her through things like this. As it happened she had none, and he was the closest thing she had to a father in the world. He did not want to ask how or why, and he could not deny that it pained him to know that Lotor had evidently not taken his advice, but Allura needed him now.

“You know,” he says, once he has wound his excitement back in to match the tone, “I always had an inkling you wouldn’t take to motherhood.”

“Really?”

“Really.” He says, “The other little girls played with baby dolls. You played with model mechas.”

“You really did struggle to make me into a presentable lady, didn’t you?”

“At times I tore my _hair_ out.” He says with a huff, “Alfor always wanted to treat you as if you were a son. He said ‘Coran, what good are you doing the girl by turning her into a little drip?’ I told him I wouldn’t allow him to let you grow up running around at court like an absolute ruffian.” He sighs, “Ultimately, we had to let you choose for yourself.”

“I remember loving the little dresses you used to bring me, and hating that I couldn’t spar in them.” She reminisces, leaning her head onto his shoulder, “I must have wrecked dozens.”

“Try twelfties.” He says, “But, it didn’t matter how many dresses you wrecked, because you were loved and wanted more than anything in the world.”

Not quite willing to look him in the face, Allura finds herself staring blankly into the cream wall in front of her. Remembering her childhood fondly was only making her feel worse, more guilty. Other people could look forward to having children. Why, why was this joyous thing filling her with dread?

“I was a happy child.” She laments airily.

“You were.” He says softly, “Now you must decide if you can give this child as much.”

“Perhaps this child will fill my heart with joy, once I have it.” She says, through deep breaths of tears, “Perhaps it will change me.” She sighs, “And then the me I know will be gone forever.”

“Once you have this child, your life will be consumed by it. You will not be Allura anymore, you will be the mother of your child. You have to_ want _children, Princess, with all your heart. If you don’t, well, what good can come of it all?”

“Should I not be responsible for the poor decisions I make?”

“You should not be unfairly punished for a moment of weakness.” He says, “Not even for duty’s sake. Did I ever tell you that I knew Lotor’s mother, once?”

No?”

“A brilliant woman, she was. Zarkon desperately wanted an heir, and Honerva loved him too much to say no. What she went through, I doubt anyone would dare repeat now. But, with hindsight, it was clear that the Quintessence Field had just warped her peri-natal depression into something so much worse.”

“I feel so guilty.” She says. She had always assumed it was the Quintessence that drove Honerva to abandon Lotor. There could be no question that Lotor had not deserved it.

“Take guilt away, for one tick.” He says, “Just for a moment, you’re not the Queen of New Altea. You’re a free citizen without a care in the world. Do you want to be a mother to this child?” 

She could open her mouth to tell him, but her eyes have said it well enough.

“Princess, when we get home, I will have the finest physicians on New Altea brought to you to discuss the right way forward.”

Coran is taken aback as Allura launches herself into his arms for a hug, tightening her arms around his shoulders as if she could pour all of her pain into him.

She may be the Queen of New Altea, but she will always be the little girl in the wrecked dresses to him.

“Go on then.” He says, dabbing at her eyes with a clean handkerchief, “You’d better go and say goodnight to Lotor.”

Just then, in the blink of an eye, or the dab of a tear, Allura is sure that she sees the silhouette of a proud white lion.

“Yes.” She ponders, “Yes I should.”

* * *

“You know, I went into cryostasis once.”

Lotor was physically unable to roll his eyes any more at this point. “You don’t say.”

“Anaphylaxis.” She says as she upwrapped various pieces of medical equipment from their sterile bags, “Peanuts, of all things. God, I _inflated_ like a balloon, nearly suffocated. I actually have no idea how they stuffed me in there.”

“Fascinating.”

Pausing for a moment, Jeanie stops the drip he had been on, disconnects it and places it delicately on the undershelf of the trolley.

Cryostasis was all about sedation, and then gradually cooling the body until the subject fell asleep. Lotor only hoped that this crazy woman had to good grace to sedate him heavily.

She connects the first syringe to his cannula, and he tries not to twitch at the cool sensation travelling up his vein, “I assume the princess has been informed.”

“Yes.” She says, “She’s in an important meeting with the ambassador, but she’s been informed.”

That wasn’t right.

Allura wouldn’t leave him alone at a time like this. She would be damned if her face wasn’t the last one he saw before he slipped away into unconsciousness, and the first one he saw when he woke again.

Then again, she had more important things to talk about with Coran. He’d told her to talk it through with him, thoroughly. Perhaps she would be here at any moment now, and he was just being juvenile. He’d never liked medical procedures at the best of times.

“She’ll be here as soon as she can.” Jeanie reassures him, “But we can’t delay. You’re too ill as it is.”

Lotor intends to say something, but it comes out in a warped rudimentary sigh. The drugs were working their way through his system, and his limbs were heavier than scaultrite.

“I have to say, you’ve been a damned difficult patient.” She mutters, “I can’t say I’ve ever dealt with a Galra-Altean hybrid before. I’ve not known what doses to use, I think that’s partially been the problem from the start.”

Lotor is too out of it to reply to any of her silly comments now, but not quite out of it enough to not hear her whittling on as she worked.

“Although, your refusing to eat has proved challenging as well.” She shakes her head to herself, “I wasn’t expecting to have to go to plan C, but here we are.”

“_Hnngh_…” Lotor makes out her blurry form floating around above him, her voice swims uncomfortably in his ears. Where was Allura? Why wasn’t she here? He did not want to go through this procedure without her.

“You’ve surprised me at every step of the way.” She says, adjusting a new set of drip lines to sedate him more heavily, “The doctors as well, obviously. You just, keep going.” She waves her hands in gesticulations, “Lesalle failed to finish you off, not for lack of trying, I might add. Then again he is an incompetent imbecile.”

She sighs, puts her hands on her hips and stares down at him. “Never mind.” She says, “Duty calls. Those upon high have decided that New Altea will not be safe until you are dead. I thought that we might have more time, but my employer is keen to see this charade come to an end. As am I.”

She picks up the second syringe, full of cooling agent, and Lotor begins to struggle in vain against his restraints.

“_A-Allura_…” He murmurs. Internally he’s thrashing, but all it amounts to are the smallest movements in his limbs.

The world swirls. He might, possibly have been capable of breaking the straps holding him down, at full strength and health, now it was an impossibility.

And he had lain there and let her do it.

As he lay, incapacitated and powerless as the cold seeped into his veins, he wondered.

“It’s better this way.” He is sure he hears Jeanie say, “The princess will grieve terribly, but she will recover eventually. New Altea will prosper, and all the political turmoil will be laid to rest.” She says, “How odd, that even you thought so, at the end.”

“Nngh…” He groans, it’s cold, far too cold, and his body can’t shut it out any longer.

…

_No. _

He wouldn’t leave her like this.

“_Allura_…”

She was right. She had been right all along. They had been through too much to give up now. They had survived ship malfunctions, meteorites, broken bones, drowning, starvation, and torture. They were still here. Alive. Beautifully and wonderfully alive through all of that and Lotor realises one thing and one thing only.

That he wants to live. Dearly and desperately. 

For her.

What had he told her before?

That he could do anything for her.

Anything in this universe. 

Somewhere in the distance, he feels the digging of leather into his wrists where he was pulling at his restraints. Adrenaline pumps into his system, waking the feral Galra instincts that lurked deep down. It took more than a twenty-times overdose to successfully tranquilise a Galra in the throes of bloodlust.

‘_Fight or die_.’ His body told him. And he could fight. Would fight. He pulled with all his might, writhing enough to make delivery of further drugs through the cannula impossible. ‘_Victory or death_.’

Every shred of love coursed up his body, releasing every ounce of energy that he had been holding back for so long.

Lotor had never felt more truly powerful than he did just then. This was the power he had craved before, ran so freely through him now, in his blood and in his being. He is sure that he can hear the waters, calling him to be what he truly is.

He feels the sizzle of his marks glowing on his cheeks, along with the careless breeze that dissolves his restraints into dust.

Jeanie, if that was even her name, pulls a firearm from her waistband and points it at his chest.

All that is visible from behind the closed blinds to the rest of the deserted ward, is a single flash of the purest light, that no one else would see or hear.

* * *

Allura may as well have broken the door down, and no sooner than her eyes find him, she immediately slams it shut and locks it behind her.

“Lotor!”

He is doubled over on the edge of his bed, dizzy and disorientated, arms bloody where he has torn various drip lines from them. He looked like a wild animal, wounded and clinging to consciousness with all his might, the glow of his aura just beginning to fade from his skin and eyes.

She catches him before he rolls off the side of the bed, and rebalances him on the mattress, propping him up beside her. He is deathly cold, and pale, all but for his Altean markings, which are glowing fiercely on his face.

The relief in his voice as her name falls from his lips brings a deep feeling of protectiveness into her heart.

It is then that she spots the unmoving body of the overly saccharine nurse on the other side of the bed, lying strewn over the contents of a medical trolley. All things, Allura notes, to put a person into cryostasis.

A tear slips down his cheek and she pulls his body to hers, rubbing at his arms to try to reintroduce warmth into them. A little Alchemy could help with that.

“_I’m_…” he shudders, “_so tired_…”

Tired of everything.

“I know, my darling, I know.” She soothes him as her brain races, “Can you stand?”

“_I don’t know_…” He says, legs wobbling underneath him. Every attempt to stand resulted in a failure.

“Here…” She says, helping him pull his suit up around his waist and to push his arms back into the sleeves, “Let me help.”

His armour feels like it weighs a tonne, clamping his limbs down at his sides if not for Allura helping him. This weight that he used to carry without question is unbearable.

“_Allura_…” He says, completely lost in her little look of concentration as she zipped his suit up. “Allura?”

“Yes?”

Oh, her eyes are like stars.

“_I love you_.”

He hadn’t told in so long, he supposed. At least not like he should have. He should be there to tell her every day without fail.

Her panic and worry break into an exasperated grin. “I love you too.” She presses her forehead to his, “And I promise I’m going to get you out of here.”

“_How_?” He gasps, “We cannot possibly fight our way out.”

“We’re not going to fight our way out.” She says, “I know I’m asking a lot, but I need you to trust me now, more than ever.”

“_I trust you_.”

His ears droop at the words, or perhaps at the lightest touch of her fingertips, struggling to undo the tangles in his hair to make him look more presentable.

“Right.” She breathes, getting to her feet, “You’re going to take my arm, we’re going to walk out of here like we own the place, and we’re going straight to the hangar decks, do you hear me?”

Gritting his teeth and shutting out the pain and the exhaustion with some sort of super-effort he couldn’t have mustered without the fear of death or something worse, Lotor rises off the edge of the bed, straightens his back, replaces his weathered face with the elegant one she knew so well, and offers her his arm.

“Lead the way, Princess.”

* * *


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See the end for notes, as they contain spoilers... :D

* * *

This was madness, Lotor thought.

There was no way that everyone on this ship would allow Allura to parade him around on her arm, and not question why he was out of restraints. Surely people must be able to see how pale he was, how weak.

There was certainly no way that he would be able to walk steadily like this for much longer.

Cold and pain fill his existence with misery. He didn’t recall anything having shocked him as much as this had. The chill in his veins reminded him with every thud in his chest how thoroughly unwanted he was. Energy crackled at his fingertips, and no matter how Lotor tries, he cannot concentrate enough to settle it into his own bodily recovery. It jumps nervously at every new sound, like static electricity, and he buries his claws deeply into his palms.

The sensation of Allura’s hand tightening its grip on his arm refocusses his mind. He could walk, and do so with a regal look on his face, or he could die. It was all he could do to stop the muscles around his spine from spasming. If he can only keep placing one foot in front of the other, nothing else would matter.

Curious eyes followed them down the various hallways and corridors. Allura offered them polite greetings as she went. Metal floors turned to carpeted ones, and still Lotor felt those eyes like knives in his back. She had decided to make smalltalk, things she knew they both hated, to convince others that they were engrossed in private conversation. Lotor did not care what she said, the sound of her voice kept him grounded.

“I personally think we should consider a pastel colour theme,” her eyes dart back to his as a human soldier stares through both of them, and she speaks louder for his benefit, “I like muted pinks, greens and blues, I thought we could do something with all three, and, darling, what do you say to calligraphed invitations? I have my heart set on those ones with the little ribbons on them.”

The moment the soldier is out of sight, Allura exhales the nervousness in her lungs.

He manages to give her a sideways look. “Muted pinks greens and blues?” 

She presses her lips together in an awkward line with a blush on her cheeks. “That just came out, I hadn’t actually given it any thought.”

He could not believe it, that one after another, every human walked past, and while they looked, they did not seem even remotely perturbed by a prisoner wandering the ship freely.

Although at this rate, Allura will have planned an entire wedding by the time they get to the hangar decks.

“I haven’t actually said yes yet.” Lotor mumbles.

She had locked the medbay room behind her, and no one was likely to look in there for at least a varga or so. They had a little time, but a little was it, and he had no idea what Allura planned to do after this.

The sight of an elevator shaft brings tears to Lotor’s eyes, as once they are inside and the doors are sealed, he collapses to his knees, exhausted with the effort of simply appearing normal.

“Ow, Lotor…” She mutters as his weight brings her to her knees as well.

His large hands splay on the floor, for grip, or even the knowledge that it was even there. He lets the cold airflow in and out of his lungs remind him that he was still in there somewhere.

“_I’m_…” he falters as his strength seeps away, “_tired_…”

“It’s alright.” She says, stroking his back gently, “This is a service elevator, we can rest here for a bit.”

Somehow, and he isn’t sure how, Lotor topples forward, his knees give way and he ends up sprawled on his front, vision swimming without grace.

“Allura…” He swallows back some bile, “Somebody high up in New Altea’s hierarchy ordered that hit.”

Curling up beside him, Allura places a hand on his shoulder. Knowing that this could, and at some point, probably would happen, didn’t make any of it less bitter. This is what had plagued Lotor’s every waking moment for movements, and it had happened before he had even set foot on the colony he founded. It wasn’t the assassination attempt, both of them were used to that, or the thought of it, anyway, but it was the rejection that it represented that was eating away at Lotor from the inside out.

“That’s not the High Circle’s position, Lotor, I promise.”

“Not officially!” He growls angrily.

He shakes his head, and she sighs. “And from what I can ascertain,” Allura says, critiquing a dossier from her vambrace, “she was a member of the Atlas med team for at least two deca-phoebs before you and I were ever found.”

It wasn’t worth thinking about.

“It was in the food.” He coughs, “That’s why I’ve been so ill.”

The food she bade him to eat mere vargas ago. Allura’s stomach sank. She reaches to stroke his hair, as if she might a wounded animal that she could not be sure would not bite, little offerings of quintessence to bolster his own in each touch. If only she could fill him with her love in the same way. “Lotor, I’m so sorry.”

Allura swears he will never spend another night in a cell for as long as they both live.

“Don’t be.” He rasps, happy that the floor is cool against his cheek, “It isn’t my first assassination attempt, and it certainly won’t be the last.”

How she wants to promise him that she will never let it happen again.

His energy is spattering again in stops and starts, mostly from his hands, but from all over his body as well. His poor aura, she thinks, so traumatised and yet nowhere to go.

“Let me help.” She says, drawing him into her lap, “Oh my love, you’re shivering.” she dusts the strands of hair from his faraway eyes. His system would fight the cryo-inducing drugs for hours yet, and these were drugs that were not really meant to be fought. Suddenly, Allura feels awful guilt for making him walk from the medbay. Lotor was barely conscious, and a single trip in his stride could have meant detection. She would have to help him where she could, until she could get him to a warm bath, and then a warm bed.

“_It’s nothing_…” He wants to say, but her touch feels so wonderfully warm that he cannot being himself to object. Her hands cup his face, her thumbs brush his cheeks, drawing a silent gasp from him. The flutter of his fingers curling around her wrist expresses his gratitude without him having to say a word.

“No it isn’t.”

She remembered when he held her like this, as he washed her own blood from her hair. He must have held her like she were the tenderest thing in the universe.

“Please.” She says, “You carried me through the darkest times, and I am honoured to do the same for you.”

Oh, when she touched his skin, he felt _powerful_. More _alive_ than he ever could without her. His alchemy synergised with hers so effortlessly, and when it did he could feel her so intimately. His heart might have choked on the body of her emotion, warm and soft and plentiful, ready to envelop him entirely. She took every care to drive out the feelings of unwantedness, for he was wanted, more so than he could imagine.

“I’d need more time to heal you completely.” She says, “But this might make you keep you strong enough to make the journey.”

“_Oh_…” He utters, as it fills him from head to toe, soothing everything into muscle. There is a flicker of pleasure in it, faint but perfect. He feels his marks fizzling on his cheeks at the feeling of his fractious energy simmering down into something calm and healing that could be put to good use restoring his own body. He opens his heart to it, every bit of it, and gives.

He could lie here forever.

This time, it is he who seeks her, eyes beckoning her closer until he could kiss her.

The ping of the elevator is what knocks them back to reality, severing their connection in a heartbeat.

“Come on.” She ushers him to his feet again as the elevator comes to a halt, “We’d better hurry.”

Without her alchemic support, Lotor could already feel his strength fading away. He needed vargas of that healing touch, not the mere ticks she had given. But they did not have vargas, and he would have to manage.

No sooner than he sees that the hangars are powered down and deserted, he drops his mask again and leans down onto her shoulders. 

“No no no no no! Keep going!” She tells him, “You can do this, we’re almost there, come on.”

Allura swears that she will pick him up and carry him if she has to.

“Woah…” She gasps as she peers around in the dimmed light. Even in a peacetime, the Atlas had a fleet of ships that could put some Altean carriers to shame. All brand new, and from the looks of them, barely flown, light glancing off their shiny polished hulls. There is something sad in that, Allura thinks. Ships are meant to be flown in. There was a plentiful array of cruisers, frigates, and scores of fighters, all seemingly, just left.

Lotor swallows back some more bile and tries to take a small amount of his own weight. “We need something inconspicuous.” He groans.

The larger ships were far too noticeable, as impressive as they were. And they needed something that one of them would know how to fly.

Lotor drops to his knee again, and Allura corrects herself. Something she knew how to fly.

She inhales deeply, and lets it all out through her nose. Which one?

Lotor looks up to find Allura still and silent, her face tense in concentration, as if she was trying to hear something that was barely audible. “What is it?”

It’s just a hum, for a moment Allura is unsure whether it is an actual noise, or just her ears playing tricks on her. “Sshh.” She hushes him, “Let me listen.”

Strings of gentle notes tremble on the air, high and low, harmonies that tickle at her soul, in the way that only one thing could.

“Can you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

She grabs his hand. “We’re in the wrong hangar.”

* * *

As Lotor feels himself being dragged along by Allura, he is sure that he can hear something too. Something calling to him. Something very near indeed. He could feel it, drawing him nearer, and getting stronger with every passing dobosh. While the presence of this sensation unnerved him somewhat, Allura seemed entirely at ease, excited, even.

“We’re nearly there…”

It rumbled within his very soul, louder and louder until his skin itched and the curiosity had all but consumed him.

“Allura, where are we going?” 

“We’re here!” She says, hacking into a large door and leading him in…

The rumble breaks into a full-fledged growl, deeper and lower than he had ever heard. He looks upward, and upward, at falling shields, and then back to Allura, and her wonderful wicked grin.

“That’s hardly inconspicuous.” He snorts, trying to cover up his surprise with derision.

“My old friend. You didn’t forget about me…” She says, letting Lotor stand unaided and walking up to the giant beast’s paw to wrap her arms around it affectionately, “I thought you’d all forgotten about me!”

The lion’s eyes give an almighty flash, and Lotor stares as it lowers its great head to inspect him, pathetic and barely capable of standing. It had a way of staring right through him, into his soul, and he is sure he will feel its growl long beyond the grave.

He could feel it now, that calling. The ghosts in the machines. It wanted him, as well as her.

_His father’s lion… _

And there he was half-expecting it to roll over for him to scratch its chin.

“No one else may believe me,” she says, “but I can always count on the lions to have my back.”

“The Black Lion?” He might have expressed less surprise at the blue one, or even the red, “Are you sure?”

“I’ve missed Blue so very much all this time.” Allura reminisces, “And I used to dream of flying red as a girl. But Black’s going to take care of us now.”

Lotor puts a tenuous hand to the metalwork of the great creature, oddly surprised when he hears a purr of acceptance in return.

“I daresay.” He says, the hint of a smile peeking on his face.

“Come on.” She says, offering him her hand once more.

And what it would mean if he took it.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Lance stands at the paw of the red lion, his tattered red overalls straining at the buttons around his waist, his hands shoved into the pockets. With a little more hair, and a few fewer pounds, time had not changed him at all really. She had never gotten around asking what had become of him in his life, to think that a mere fifty deca-phoebs was almost the entire lifespan of a human, she wondered. Many things, she supposed, but firstly whether or not he had ever truly grown up.

Of all the paladins, he had been the one who, if she really admitted it, she had not been so happy to see.

“Lance…” She breathes like a deer in the headlights, “What are you doing here?”

“I come down here every once in a while.” He says, “Make sure Red’s ticking over nicely. Know she’s all but decommissioned now but, I like to keep her presentable.”

“I thought Keith banned you from the ship.” Allura splutters.

“From the official manifest, yes.” He says, “Truth is, he’s not as ignorant about my sneaking down here as he’d like to have you think he is.” He continues, “But somehow, I don’t think he knows anything about _this_.” He gestures between the two of them carelessly.

“Lance,” she begins, “please, this ship isn’t safe for Lotor anymore, I have to evacuate him as a matter of urgency.”

“Lotor is the one who’s dangerous.” He says with a streak of disappointment, “He’s the one who farmed a nation like animals. You’re helping a war criminal get away with murder Allura, and the saddest thing is that you don’t even see how unlike you that is.”

His comment might as well have stabbed her in the stomach.

“I don’t have time to explain everything to you now.” She says, “But I beg of you, if our time as friends has meant anything at all, please believe me when I say that Lotor isn’t the man you think he is. And I won’t let him die because it suits someone’s political agenda, Lance, I just won’t.” 

Lance frowns. “And you can’t whisk him away because it suits yours!” He says, “What’s wrong with you? You used to care about justice being done in the universe. Now all you care about is making sure that your boyfriend stays out of jail.”

“Justice will be done, and not according to you and your tiny little ideas.” She snorts, “Things aren’t black and white. Terrible circumstances beget terrible decisions.”

“Yeah, there’s a whole load of shades of grey going on here.” He says dismissively, “Look around you! Everyone thinks you’ve got Stockholm Syndrome. If you do this, all you’d do is make them believe they’re right.”

Allura wants to know what that means even less than she did before.

“Is that supposed to be some sort of illusion to the state of my sanity?” She quips, “Do you think they’re right?”

His silent condescension is so much more irritating now that he is older, like age has given him some rite of passage to be insolent.

“Nah.” He says, “I don’t. I Just think you love him like crazy and you can’t see it.” He says, “I hated watching you do this to yourself back then, and I hate watching you do it now.” 

There was something heinous about the way he spoke to her that made Allura’s blood boil. She supposed she had allowed him certain, misdemeanours, when he was younger. He was so very young and immature, but he meant well. He would grow out of his insecurities in time, and would become a perfectly respectable young man. She was so very pained to see that now he hadn’t matured past his insecure, teenage self.

“How dare you presume to know what I do and do not see? You spent your life presuming things and-” She has to take a deep breath before she continues lest she throttle him with her bare hands, “You treated me like an inanimate object!” She snarls, “You kept trying to _kiss_ me when I was clearly not interested, and you acted like some great injustice had befallen you when I rejected you!” She says, “You were a pest and a nuisance, and if you cannot see that now then there is no hope for us to remain friends!”

“Woah! Hey!” He shouts, faltering as he became all too aware of Lotor’s eyes piercing into his gut, “I’m sorry, okay??!!”

“You’re, what?” She blinks.

“I’m sorry.” He mumbles, like a small child being forced to apologise, “No, I, I really am. For all the stupid stuff I did back then.” He drops the insolence then, “I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on _all _the stupid stuff I did and said, and, I may have been slapped a couple of times. I was an ass. When I saw the way your eyes lit up for him, I knew you would never look the same way at me.” He shrugs sadly, “And for the way I treated you, Allura, I am genuinely sorry.”

Allura has no idea where to even start with that. “I, um…”

“But, as crazy as this may seem, I actually did care about you. And to see you make mistake after mistake for that guy?” he gestures at Lotor again, “When you’re worth so much more? Honestly, it’s more than a little depressing.”

Why the little-

“Lance.” A gruff and dusty voice calls drearily from the steps of the Red Lion, “Shut, up.”

Slow calculated footsteps reveal Keith, the top two buttons of his uniform undone and his hair less than its usual tidy. Allura watches an uneasy lump travel down his throat.

“How did you know we would be down here?”

“I didn’t.” He says, and shoves into his pockets, “What are you doing down here?”

“I, well…” Allura says, brain firing madly. She could come clean, completely clean, and tell him about the dead nurse locked in the medbay suite, about the assassination plot, about everything. Would Keith already know, or be in on it even? She cannot possibly know, although she would truly lose faith in him if he did. As it happens, he is glaring at her, somewhat nervously, a line in his brow tense and unwavering, and is making no attempts whatsoever to stop her, “It’s come to my attention that there is a plot afoot to assassinate Lotor.”

In the oddest moment that she has experienced since being on this ship, Keith gives her a look of something akin to relief.

“When is there not a plot afoot to assassinate Lotor? That’s what I wanna know.”

Keith squeezes his eyes shut as if Lance’s voice is giving him a headache.

“Allura-” He says, unsure of how to process the information, “You can’t just release Atlas prisoners on a whim. We have appropriate security protocols for this. Why was I not kept informed?”

Keith’s watch begins to beep, and he flicks his wrist out of his pocket to glare at it with a roll of his eyes, as if he expects this crap by now. “Never mind, consider me informed.” 

“I would have explained, but there’s no time. I don’t know how big this plot is, but it’s bigger than just Lesalle. This assassin had been a sleeper on your staff for deca-phoebs, there’s no telling how many more there could be, or who they’re working for. I don’t expect that everyone will support Lotor as I do.” She says, glaring at Lance before he makes a sarcastic remark, “But assassinations of any sort are unconstitutional, and I shall be making efforts to get to the bottom of whoever ordered this hit. In the meantime, I intend to keep him unharmed, as per our custody agreements, and to do that I need to evacuate him to safety, now.”

He wants to argue with her, she can tell. But he doesn’t quite dare. His eyes dart to Lotor, who is clearly suffering despite his bravado, and then back to her.

“Wait, what are you doing down here?” She asks him curiously, “I thought you two hated each other?”

Lance throws Keith an unhappy pout, his arms folded across his chest, while Keith scowls. “Hate’s a strong word.”

Allura’s eyes are distracted momentarily by the nape of his neck, and the button that lay carelessly unfastened there, and his pulse hammering in his throat.

“Oh.” She says quietly, looking from one to the other in turn, “Well this is rich.”

Of all the things in all the universe, Allura had never expected this. Then again, she supposed, perhaps she should have done. Their story as told by Pidge, whispered in the dead of the night cycle for the walls of the Atlas were thin, of unforeseen circumstances and sweat-twisted sheets, was enough to make a redlight worker blush. Clearly, neither of them had ever gotten over it, or wanted to, it seemed.

Keith stutters, his face redder than beetroot. “It’s- not what it looks like-”

Lance, by contrast, was almost mildly entertained by all of this. He had never given a jot what other people thought of him, but Keith, Keith was not the same, and never had been.

“No no.” She says, “It’s always nice to know that hypocrisy is alive and well. My ‘inappropriate relationship’ is up for public debate, it seems, topped off with your soured scrutiny; while yours stays squirrelled away? How long have you two been having secret liaisons in here for anyway? I don’t suppose there’s any requirement for anyone to be in here, now the war is over. You keep Lance off the official passenger lists, tell everyone you hate him, and no would ever suspect your lover was here!”

“Allura, that’s ridiculous-”

“Give it up, man.” Lance elbows the slightly shorter man in the ribs, “She knows.”

“She wouldn’t if you had half a brain cell!”

“Oh sure, I’m the stupid one-”

“_Gentlemen!_”

Allura’s voice cuts sharp and clean across them, her fists clenched at her sides.

“Security are going to realise we’re gone any moment now!” She says, stepping forwards, “Lotor and I are leaving this ship, whether you approve of it or not. All that remains to be seen,” she sighs, and adds somewhat more softly, “is whether or not you intend to stand in our way.”

Keith does his top button up hastily. “I can’t let you do that, Allura.”

“Really?” She says, “Because you do realise, that the moment they find us, then they find you two as well? Dishevelled, top buttons and all.”

A small vein appears on Keith’s head. “That’s unfair and you know it!”

“No, it isn’t.” She says, interlinking her fingers with Lotor’s and placing her hand on his arm in an assertion of unity, “We’re due to leave anyway, let us get out of your hair. Just pretend you were both never here and we’ll be gone for good.”

She bites her lip, unsure if she would actually have to fight her way out of here or not. Keith is angry enough, while Lance seems oddly shocked more than anything. Lotor is tense beside her, eyes narrow and waiting for the slightest inkling of movement, but he was in no position to fight in his condition. Neither man makes a move to fight, with Lance crossing his arms across his chest lazily and looking to Keith for guidance.

Finally, Keith lets his shoulders drop just a little.

“Allura, we don’t want you to go.”

“Keith-”

“Let me finish before you jump down my throat.” He says, “We thought you were gone for good before. And, well, it turns out that the giant hole you left was too big for any of us to bridge. I have, so much regret.” He says, “About what I did that day. I made a choice that I had to live with for the rest of my life, and even though I know I saved the most life…” he shakes his head to himself, “I never forgave myself. Lance was there, of course.” He touches his arm affectionately, “Truth is, I don’t know what I’ve have done without him. I thought I was brave but,” he sighs, “turns out I wasn’t all along. What I’m trying to say is; Allura, we don’t want you to be gone for good. Not now and not ever.”

“Truly?”

Lance gives a lop-sided grin. “Ever not ever.”

Allura did not think that anything either Keith or Lance had ever moved her to tears. Not tears of happiness, anyway. “Thank you! Oh thank you!” She launches herself into Keith’s arms, “I’ll be back to see you both soon, I promise!”

Parting from Keith, Allura holds her arms out wide to Lance. “Um, are you sure?” He says awkwardly, “You don’t have to.”

“As long as you don’t kiss me, we’re good.”

With a hug and a pat on the back, and perhaps another tear or two, Allura steps back to take Lotor’s hand again, and pass his as much healing energy as she could to keep him upright.

“You’d better go.” Keith says.

“Don’t be strangers!” She calls, as the lion lifts them both high into the air, and the time finally comes for Allura to take her place as the leader she always knew she was, at the helm of Voltron, as the paladin of the Black Lion, for one final journey.

Lowering herself into the pilot’s seat, her hands grip at the flight sticks with the faintest quiver of breathless excitement.

At her right, Lotor kneels beside her, too exhausted to stand. He’ll be alright, they both know it, but for now, before his weary body loses its grip on consciousness again, he reaches out to cover her tiny right hand with his much larger one, eyes knowing and fond.

“_Where to, my Queen?_”

Meanwhile, on the ground, Lance and Keith wave away an ensemble of lion, prince and princess they never thought they would see, so long as they both lived.

Lance gives a tiny smile, before folding his arms again once they are gone.

“She’s definitely making a mistake.”

“You’re an ass.”

"And I'm all yours."

"Make no mistake." Keith says grumpily, turning on his heel, "When the time comes, I'm really going to enjoy unplugging you." 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was watching a British sitcom called Vicious the other day, (if you haven't seen it I recommend you do, it's on YouTube, and it's hilarious) and it made me think, that is just what older Klance would be like...


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everybody, sorry it's been a while. In truth, this has been written and re-written many times, I think because I am trying to wrap things up, and I'm trying to do it right. 
> 
> I haven't been as good at tagging as perhaps I should be, mostly because I don't want to give any plot (if you can call it that) away, and the 'E' rating automatically implies that the content may be unpalatable to some. However I am going to warn you all now that this chapter contains triggers relating to baby loss, and please proceed accordingly. 
> 
> This issue has been going around and around in my head for a long time, about what my version of Allura would really do, and I expect that this will be a divisive topic for many. Feeling like an outsider because I don't want kids is an ongoing thing in my life, and I wanted to reflect that in Allura. 
> 
> On a brighter side, my intention is to end this story on a happy note, despite me kicking them down before they get there, so watch this space. I have also toyed with the idea of this story having several alternate epilogues, but we'll see how things evolve. 
> 
> Hope you all enjoy! Thanks to everyone for their reviews, and recent support on Tumblr, it made me happy at the end of another shitty day, so thank you :)

* * *

When Lotor awakes, there is sunlight.

At least he thinks.

A distant whir of an engine tickles at his ears, and the sunlight floods through his eyelids beckoning him to stir.

“Rise and shine.”

Allura sits in the pilot’s seat, hands engaged on the flight sticks, her lips cocked up in a small smile as her eyes concentrate forwards on her destination.

“Said I’d get you out of there.”

For a blissful moment, Lotor does not remember what had transpired vargas before. His back complains at the odd twisted shape that he had fallen into, his limbs feel heavier than usual. About ten doboshes into their journey, with Allura’s help, Lotor had wearily curled up on the floor next to the seat, and drifted off into a natural sleep. As much as Allura longed for the fun of putting Black through her paces, she had decided upon the steadiest flight path, so that he could sleep soundly. 

He wonders if perhaps she means the Atlas, the Rift, or whatever existence he seemed to occupy without her. No one had ever wanted to risk what she had for him. No matter how fierce a warrior he was, it made him feel hopelessly fuzzy inside.

“You broke me out of prison.” He groans, trying to make sense of the blurriness of his vision. It’s bright wherever they are, they are within the atmosphere of a habitable planet.

She smiles to herself, and flicks a few switches on the control panel.

“You abducted me from the Atlas ship.”

She bites her lip with a grin. “Mm-hm.” She says, far too happy with herself, “It wasn’t easy, but it had to be done.” 

Lotor hated confusion at the best of times, but the hazy muzz that fogged his mind now was almost, comforting. She was here, and he knew that it would be quite safe to carry on sleeping. He hadn’t slept undisturbed like that for movements.

Deciding that he cannot stay on the floor forever, Lotor wipes the sleep from his eyes, and drags himself to his feet.

“Steady.” She says, “Pre-stasis drugs can be quite potent.”

He heeds her warning all the same, but he feels fine, actually. Better than he had in a while. His body aches just a little, from the shackle bruises and from sleeping on the floor, nothing that will phase him.

“Where are we?”

His eye focus. Clouds now, masses of them, thick and fluffy. He knew this atmosphere, and this sun.

“Home.” She says, refocussing her gaze on the flight path ahead of her. She has steadily decreased the speed of the lion, until they were barely making progress at all, just so that she could see the view. Her eyes light up at the autumnal colours of the foliage. “It’s, how I imagined it.”

Allura had seen many planets, over the deca-phoebs of her life. Ever since she had been old enough to walk, her father had propped her up on his shoulders and taken her around the universe with him. Every one a plentiful new world to explore. She stared in wonder then, just as she stared in wonder now.

“I didn’t forget this.” Unzipping one of her suit pockets, a marvellous addition to its new design, she pulls out the little rabbit in her hand, as threadbare and unfinished as it had always been.

“We did it Lotor!” She says, beaming up at him with the brightest of smiles, “Everything we suffered, on Sincline and on the Atlas, it was all to get here. Him, and you and I, we were always meant to come home. And we’re here.”

She hears Lotor’s breath catching in his throat behind her right ear, before he has the presence of mind to stop himself. If he could have told the colony Alteans millennia ago that times would get better, the planet would rejuvenate into this place of safety and rest; he might have scoffed at his empty promises.

“Do you not think that this is a political ruse?” He asks. Planets were all too frequently ready to do away with their archaic monarchies, it seemed an anomaly that New Altea would willingly adopt one without question.

“Almost certainly.” She replies, as if this does not even remotely phase her, “Iliyor undoubtedly stands to gain from this spectacular piece of PR. He is all smiles and courtesies, but I’m sure he thinks I’m a drip.” She pulls a nonchalant face, “I think I might let him believe it for a little while longer.” She sighs contentedly, “But the public opinion is favourable, political ruse or not. I have my own reports to back that up.”

He raises an eyebrow at her, in doing so showing just a little glint of his usual humour.

“I didn’t sit on my backside for five movements, you know.” She says, “And Coran has been quite busy too. I wasn’t about to take their hand off at this opportunity until I could be sure that it was in the peoples’ best interests. And ours. I’ve seen far too many monarchies fall.” She smiles, “But it seems Alchemy has been dearly missed by Alteans for a very long time. We will be building, representing, and educating, rather than ruling like our fathers did. But I think, maybe, that is a step in the right direction.”

“And royal diplomacy?”

She shrugs. “Oh, I’m fairly sure they’ll throw us in front of the next available bus of interplanetary engagements. You and I are used to that, at least.”

“Yes,” he swallows, “indeed we are.”

She moves to hold the hand of his that rests on her shoulder. “Are you alright?”

But he says nothing, he does not have to. A lump travels down his throat in awkward silence. Apprehension did no one any good. The faint reflection of himself in the window looked an utter mess. The confidence that he could usually muster felt as if it were chewed up and spat out again, and then stuffed back into his lifeless form.

“I will be.” He says sternly. Usually he would have the presence of mind to strengthen himself against what lay ahead. 

And yet still something was wrong.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Allura bites her lip uneasily. They had dreamed of going home for so long. This should be a moment of beauty and celebration. And yet the man she loved was staring blankly into the middle distance in apprehension.

“You aren’t.”

Her words break over him with a shivering draught of air.

“I’m not the same, as when I was once here.” He explains emptily, words travelling to the heavens, “I never had doubts, Allura, or regrets like this before, not in ten thousand deca-phoebs of life.” He turns to her, “And I am not fit to be the co-regent New Altea requires.”

His hands shake, until Allura’s find them. The torture had broken him, he was ashamed to admit it, the confinement stifled him, and the attempt on his life left him a living shell of what he once was. For a moment, he had even believed that he belonged in that box of a cell.

Was it because they were safe now? He ponders. Is this why his mind and body are giving up on him after all this time? Like when one becomes ill only after the ordeal is over.

“Lotor,” Allura says, gently taking his hand with her free one, “you’ve been traumatised. Things, won’t be the same as they were. It will take time to start feeling like yourself again. And, you’re allowed that time as much as any other person.”

He supposed that he had. He had never thought of it as such before. Great pain, physical and otherwise, came and went. He carried on. He never stopped, or faltered. Until now.

“I’ve never been like this.” His voice is steady, but his fist shakes next to his thigh. “I barely know myself, Allura.”

Pulling the lion into a hover, Allura launches herself from the pilot’s seat to draw Lotor into a deep embrace. The slight weight of her arms around his are soothing, somehow, and all the more encouraging him to fall apart within them.

“I know you.” She mutters into his shoulder, “You are strong, and brave. But that does not make you invincible. I know I asked you to put on a brave face.” She says, “You are so good at it that sometimes I forget what you are covering up.”

He can feel his cheeks blush at that. She had an ability to warm him from the inside out, and there was his love for her, brimming up and threatening to spill.

“And you will not be alone through it, not for one dobosh.”

“I’m so tired, Allura.” He says, completely at a loss for how else to describe it, and buries his face into her hair. He had said it before, and now somehow it held an entirely different meaning.

“It is high time that you had some rest and some time to heal.” She says with a hint of trepidation, “I will bring you every good thing.”

“You won’t have the time.”

She kisses his ear. “I’ll make the time. I should think it’s been a while since anyone has spoiled you.” She says, whispering to him, a hand running up and down his bicep in the kindest way, “I’ve been looking forward to it for movements.”

Galra did not acknowledge ‘weakness’ in that manner, he reminds himself. Then again, he supposed, what the Galra did or did not do was long lost to history now.

Lotor changes the subject.

“And, what of your burdens?” He asks, hands smoothing at her sides, “What decision have you reached?”

Her grip on him falters. How she wished he hadn’t brought that up.

That little flutter in his heart.

She sighs. “I am to see a doctor, when we arrive.”

Lotor swallows. He could tell her, how much he wanted this chance to prove to himself. He would raise the child himself, entirely if that was what she wanted, he supposed that for the foreseeable future, that was all he would be good for in any case. He could love it, he decided. Since meeting Allura his heart had been full of more love than he knew what to do with.

But she is frightened, although she is trying desperately not to let it show. He hated seeing her like this, it reminded him of that night on Sincline, phoebs ago now, and that he dreaded finding her like that again.

“Although, I have not quite decided, yet.” She adds tenuously, “I am caught between the duty I have to my people,” she sighs, “and the duty I have to myself. It’s all rather easier when you’re looking in from the outside, isn’t it?”

She knows she should be able to tell him that it was okay to feel the way he did. He hadn’t exactly hidden it, for all he remained silent on the matter.

“I love you so much, you know?” She blurts, as if it somehow makes up for something, holding onto him for dear life.

Allura cannot bear this conversation anymore.

“Oh gosh,” she says, leaning back and wiping her face with both hands, “Look at me, I’m being so silly over all of this. This isn’t the way we’re supposed to start our new beginning, I haven’t even let you pilot the…”

The feeling of Lotor’s hand firmly gripping at her wrist stops her mid-ramble.

“My love, in this matter I beg you, put yourself first.”

His grip bites just enough to hurt, and so does the eye-contact that she hastens to avoid.

“Promise me?”

‘_I don’t know if I can…’ _Her brain screams.

It doesn’t come out of her mouth.

“I’ll try.”

Is what she decides to say. “It just, it helps not to talk about it too much. Every time I think about it I well up and then I overthink things.” She takes a deep breath, “But I am trying.” She tucks strands of loose hair behind her ears, “Coran has made me an appointment in a few quintants. I did wonder if perhaps you might accompany me?”

His grip loses its bite. “I will be at your side any time you so wish it, my Queen.”

Her smile, so bright that it could outshine a sun, and yet, he senses so much fear underneath it.

“Good. Now, take me home, please.” She says, unpeeling his fingers from her wrist and pressing a kiss to the tip of his nose.

The former Emperor of the Galra blinks, his ears twitching. “Fly?”

“No, swim.” Her sarcasm washes over his head, “Yes of course fly!”

“Are you certain?”

She gives him a look that begged the question whether he was a complete idiot or not. “Yes.” She reassures him.

A wayward hand shows Lotor the way to the empty pilot’s seat, and he stares. That was where his father had sat, many eons ago, his mother at his side. Smiling, perhaps even laughing.

Suddenly, that pilot’s seat, as standard as any other he had sat in, seemed awfully big indeed.

And yet it did call to him, in a way. In a way that no other ship ever had. So did that itch of curiosity underneath his skin, reminding him that he loved to fly.

“You will need to guide me.” He says, hand pausing over the arm rest, before he lowered himself cautiously into the seat, “I haven’t flown anything in a long time, much less a Voltron lion.”

He had dreamed of it before, of course, in victory when he had swindled the lions from their paladins. What he had not realised at the time was that no lion would have allowed him to fly then.

How much everything had changed. 

Staring at the visor schematics, Lotor realises that there was something awfully familiar about them. Anything familiar now would be a blessing. Even the Altean glyphs, still so foreign to him, seemed to form intelligible words in front of his eyes. Perhaps he was seeing things, or seeing what he wanted to see, at any rate.

“You might be surprised.” Allura explains, “The original paladins of Voltron came from star-faring cultures galaxies apart. Each lion was designed with its original paladin in mind. So that not too much retraining would be required to fly them. The cockpit of the Black Lion was designed after those of Galra fighters.”

He sees it now. The flight sticks are socketed more rigidly, there are pedal controls, not unlike his own fighter, with buttons and switches exactly where his reflexed thought they should be.

Lotor misses Allura’s slightly dumbfounded expression when he can do nothing except stare at the controls.

“Budge up.” She says, patting him on the thigh and encouraging him to make enough space that she could perch on the seat between his legs. Hooking her thumbs around his palms, she lifts his hands, one at a time, to rest upon the flight sticks. “Here.” She says, curling her fingers around his, “That’s better.”

Curiosity eats its way into Lotor’s gut, and filled with a momentary confidence, he takes a grip at the controls, and pushes them forward.

The engines fire, and Lotor sits back into the seat. The Black Lion was far heavier than his fighter, slower, and less manoeuvrable, but the sheer power was enough to put a wicked grin onto his face. 

“Lotor!” Allura pulls a half-amused, half-disgusted face as he throws the lion into a 360-degree spin, “This is not – ahh!”

She cannot help but cover her mouth as he pulls up, flying horizontally upwards, almost high enough to take them out of the planet’s gravitational fields, before killing the power, and letting the lion free-fall.

“Our flight instructors used to make us do this off of the cliffs of Feyiv as a test of mettle. There was nothing but denser than dense peridotite at the bottom!” He says, holding onto Allura’s waist so that she did not float out of his lap, “If you pulled up before the warning signs you were demoted from the fighter ranks.”

“We had similar tests of valour.” Allura says calmly, folding her arms as the lion hits its terminal velocity, “I do not care to recall any of them right now in case I vomit into your face.”

Although she is sure that the nausea is pregnancy-related, because at any other time she would have quite happily joined him in his unbridled joy at the most obscenely dramatic flight manoeuvres that he can muster.

She grips at her stomach at the planet’s blue surface gets terrifyingly closer. “Are you trying to break our necks?”

The lions paw thrusters engage, and Lotor skilfully brings the lion to a hover just before hitting a clear blue sea, the downdraft from the engines blowing patterns into the water, and Allura lands heavily in Lotor’s lap with a sigh of relief.

“No more, please!” She gasps. Her hand covers her belly as if to settle it back down again. “Sages Lotor, I think you woke the baby.”

He flinches oddly at the words as the cogs in his brain turn. “It can’t be big enough to kick you, can it?”

“No.” She curls her knees over the side of the seat, somehow finding a way to curl up against Lotor’s chest and smoosh her cheek against his armour. “But it sure does know when it wants to make me feel like death.”

Giving up on the antics, Lotor slows the lion down to steady linear trajectory, and cradles the occasionally grumbling Allura in his lap.

“If only the Galra were a hermaphroditic species.” She laments, “Then you could feel like this and I could do the piloting.”

“I’ll make it up to you.” He promises, although at this rate he has absolutely no idea how.

“Chocolate.” She murmurs.

“What?”

“If you want to make it up to me, do it in chocolate.” She says, “Human foodstuff, it’s bloody marvellous.”

“Your wish is my command, my Queen.”

“And hamburgers.”

“Hamburgers?”

“I don’t usually like them.” She yawns, “But right now I could just eat like eleven of them.”

“I shall bring you hamburgers, and chocolate, not necessarily in that order, and every awful human foodstuff in between.”

Oh that sounded good.

Her stomach turns, and Allura rolls her legs down. “Right, bathroom time.” She says, not entirely sure why that was what fell out of her mouth. Then again, she was feeling so rotten now that she didn’t suppose that she cared. If he harboured some odd fantasy about being the father of her child he would have to be comfortable with her lesser-appealing body functions. He had had plenty of time to get used to them, after all.

“You’ve got this?” She checks one last time, and he nods.

Each lion had bathroom facilities, upon Trigel’s insistence. Smart woman, Allura thinks, as she wanders own into the cargo hold. Her father would have had them all crossing their legs from Altea to Taujeer.

“_Ow you little blighter_!” She winces, clenching at her side, “I’m almost there.”

Slamming the cubicle door shut behind her, Allura pulls her suit down her legs and drops herself onto the toilet seat, bending over double so far that her clammy forehead reaches her knees.

“Urgh.” She groans, there was no dignity being female, that was for sure. Yanking at the handle of a nearby cupboard, Allura finds a floral can of deodoriser, and sprays it liberally around her, before planting her head firmly back onto her knees.

That was better.

Drinking in the cool air until the nausea settled just a little, Allura reaches for the toilet roll and starts tearing pieces off, noticing as she does so some spots in the seat of her underwear.

Pulling them up between her knees, they aren’t spots, more like bright red blotches.

“_Oh no_…” She whispers, “_No, no no no no no_…”

* * *

It is night-time, wherever they are going.

Lotor knows that he should keep flying, but it certainly did no harm to let the lion hover for a moment and look at the world before him.

Starlight echoed in the sparkling waters below. The thought that there was no one, quite literally, within miles and miles, would once have put him on edge. Now, he cannot help but enjoy the peace it offered.

His belly aches, no doubt a ripple from Allura. It reminded him of the first time he had been able to share in her pain, rolling around in the Sincline cabin like a crazed fool. 

“_Lotor!_”

That cannot be good, he thinks, wrestling with the harness to release him from the seat again. Wandering down into the lion’s cargo hold, his ears begin to hear the faintest sound of her crying.

When he pushes at the door, Allura has her suit pulled down to her knees, her cheeks burn red, scalded by hot tears that won’t stop falling, the rest of her body shivering, hands drawn up around her shaking arms.

“What is it?” He asks softly.

Later, when he reflects on this moment, he wonders why he did not scent it immediately, not even from the pilot’s seat. And he will always blame the floral deodoriser that she had sprayed thick and heavy doboshes before.

He kneels beside her, rubbing her arms and reaching for a towel to wrap around her shoulders. “Szaralmem, what’s the matter?”

His voice reaches her ears like a razor blade, and she freezes. She did not think that she could bear for him to see this. Not when it was something that he wanted so much. Guilt rose up like an angry wave and consumed Allura as if she were nothing more than a piece of shrapnel, and her elbows slip against her trembling thighs in despair.

Literate words do not come out of her mouth. Instead a streaming of blubbered nonsenses between gasps for air and wracked sobs cascades before she can stop it. Between her hands, Allura holds the seat of her underwear up for inspection, trembling, as if she had committed a murder.

Lotor was not usually too perturbed by the sight of blood. But this was, different. Shock disseminated into his limbs, and he almost forgot to breathe.

“It’s alright.” Is all he can think to say, tucking his head into the crook of her shoulder. “I’m here.”

This close, he can smell every microlitre of adrenaline and cortisol in her veins, the perspiration on her skin, things to signal to him the acute distress of his mate.

This close, she will not see his tears either.

She gives a stifled groan as another wave of pain seizes at her, and she tightens her grip on him. “_I’m so sorry_…” She mutters to him, “_I’m so sorry_…”

“You are not to be sorry for _anything_!” He growls, “I won’t hear it, not now, not ever. This is not your fault.”

It was her being sorry for how others might feel on the matter that had resulted in a delay in action that would have prevented this. Just then, he hated and loathed every sodding stereotype responsible for making women think that there was something wrong with them if they didn’t want to be mothers.

Painful waves come every fifteen doboshes or so. Followed by more blood, and more tears. In between, things were calm. Lotor dug out more and more towels until she was draped in about four or five, and turned on the hot tap into the tiny basin. The heat gave her reprieve, and the steam helped to clear her sinuses from all the crying. She sipped at the beaker of water that he brought her, and clung onto him again as each wave rode itself out.

He was hurting, although he was not outwardly showing it. This was what she had been so terrified of, all along. Perhaps, she thinks, if she had been strong enough, she could have seen it all through. They could have given her a myriad of pain relief for the birth, perhaps even a surgical procedure so that she would not have had to endure it. Lotor could have raised the little one, while she continued her duties as the monarch.

“_I’m a terrible person_.” She says, when she hasn’t got any more tears left.

“No, you are not.” He dismisses, turning his attention to massaging the pain from her lower back. “Surely you cannot believe that I would be disgusted at you for this?”

“Yes I am.” She says dully, “Well, maybe you won’t think so, but everyone else will.” She presses her fingers into her eyelids until she can see floaters, but it does nothing to alleviate the red-hot shame. Anything was better than looking him in the eye at that very moment. “Lotor, I’m…” she quivers, “I’m _relieved_.”

She cringes. _Who says a thing like that? _

Then there is another silence, one that she has to fill, for if she does not, it will swallow her up whole.

“Can you believe that?” She croaks, “Some women long for children for as long as they live, and the Sages do not bless them. Then here I am, and _this _\- _happens_, and up here it’s like there’s something _wrong with me_.” She taps angrily at her own forehead. 

Lotor, it seemed, had recovered from the initial shock of it all. He looks as calm as ever, she thinks, serene, perhaps, in the knowledge that what had happened could not be undone. Her words, however much they soothe her, offend him greatly she can tell.

“Despite what the Galra Empire would have had the universe believe,” he says, “not all men make good soldiers. The propaganda was one thing, the reality another. It seems logical to apply the same principle to women and motherhood.”

“It’s true.” She sniffs, “But it’s a very lonely place indeed.”

Concern jerks at his lips. “You are strong enough to stand in lonely places.” He reassures her, raising her chin with a finger, “You’ve a right to feel however you like, I would rather have you relieved than grieving.” He strokes her cheek, “And you will not be alone while there is breath in my body.”

“_Thank you_…” She shudders, throwing her arms around his shoulders again, “_Oh, thank you_…”

* * *

She sits for several vargas on that toilet seat. And then for a varga more, just so that she could be sure that there would be no more.

Lotor finds her a clean suit in the cargo hold. It wasn’t perhaps what she had been planning on wearing, but it wasn’t too moth-eaten, and it would have to do for now.

When he finally thinks to return to the cockpit, Lotor is surprised to find that the Black Lion is not, exactly, where he left it.

It had landed itself, quite without either of them noticing, in a clearing in an area that seemed to be predominantly forest, apparently in advance of Allura’s desperate pleas for privacy and fresh air.

“There are no biosignals for at least fifty miles.” He says, running a quick scan of the area, “We shouldn’t be disturbed here.”

There is a fresh earthy scent to the air, and the call of an avian species he could not identify. Reds, yellows and oranges cling to the trees, a last splattering of crepuscular beauty before the winter came. Leaves crunch under his feet, and Lotor realises that this is the first time that his feet have touched solid ground in deca-phoebs. In those spare vargas spent clutching her hands, concentrating and meditating, Lotor knew that Allura had given him something very precious in those lessons. He had never known it so much until now.

This world was full of life, swimming in it without drowning, from the sounds to the scents, his senses heightened to it all. She had connected his soul to the epicentre of life itself, and now the life buzzing around them was an onslaught he was happy to drown in.

His hands find the earth, crackling leaves and fertile soil, he needed to be a part of it.

This was where he was supposed to be. With her.

Allura, hangs back at the mouth of the lion, face pale and limbs shaky, adorned in the suit of a black paladin. Refreshed, his markings glowing gently, Lotor offers her his hand to steady her descent. Wobbly legs carry her forwards onto firm ground, and her lungs inhale the first gulp of fresh air.

The sensation of life at its source, tapping on her inner alchemic instincts seemed to be an honour of which she was undeserving. The energy buzzed all around her, offering at once to replenish her, to make her feel alive again.

Allura does not want it, for now.

“Oh, Ancients.” She whispers hoarsely, staring into the orange flavours of the setting sun over the rolling hillsides, her fingers gripping at his arm, “Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?”

“I confess,” he murmurs, “I do not think I have.”

“You’re sure there is nobody here?”

“Positively.” He reassures her.

Long shadows descend on the hillside. They sit together in a bed of leaves, huddling their knees against their chests and staring out into the untamed beauty below. Lotor holds her in his arms, and for all he kisses her and caresses her, innocent attempts to fill her with his love, she cannot quite find the energy in herself to reciprocate it like he deserved.

Perhaps she would one day, just like the annoying dregs of natural quintessence around her, asking to be let in and to be a part of her.

A little breeze stirs up the leaves near Lotor’s fingers, and he redirects them away, eyes watching as they dance in patterns before them.

He was doing that.

Well, some of it.

Half a smile managed to tweak at her lips. Encouraging her to hold out an open palm, a single patchwork leaf lands straight into it. That bit was not him. Around her doll-like form, she can feel new life and growth. Pulling herself a little more upright, Allura begins to gently brush away at the leaves they sat in, and gasps. Shoots, new green ones sprout from the cold ground around them. Mosses and lichens too, with seedlings and saplings, phoebs too early, springing just for them.

This world had magic aplenty, and it was dancing for her.

“This world is offering you its strength.” He says, fingers brushing at the wondrous lush greenness around them, “You should take a little, Allura. It will replenish your body, if not your soul.”

“_Oh, thank you_.” She says, to each and every way this planet was welcoming her home, “But I’m here to give, not take.” She gently blows the little leaf from her palm and away into the breeze, “However kind this world may be. Besides, I think if I drank my fill right now I might suck it dry.”

A thought enters Lotor’s mind and almost snaps it in two.

“Allura…” He says, his voice heavy, “Were you going to do it?”

She stares into the sunlight. “Do what?”

His brow furrows painfully.

“Were you going to have a baby you didn’t want, for New Altea?”

“No, I…” she sniffs, “Well yes, for that. But I…” She wipes at her face with already damp hands, “Never mind.”

“What?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Allura!”

She blinks, tiredly into the failing light, her voice lifeless. “If you must know,” she says, “I wanted to do it for you, Lotor.”

The hand that is gently stroking her back suddenly stops, and she wonders if she has said too much, while much of her cares little anymore. He stares at her, hopelessly lost, and the vacuum of guilt sucks her even further down.

“Oh…” Is all he can manage. He holds her tighter still, but there are not words in his extensive vocabulary for this.

“I, just…” she says, “I could feel how _happy _you were, and you’ve been through so much for me, and,” her voice cracks, “you’d be such a good father. I didn’t want to deprive you of that. In any case, it hardly matters now.”

Never before had Allura’s words filled him with such painful and confused emotions. “Allura,” he forces out drily, “I abhor the concept of you bearing any hardship for me.” He adds, “You would have resented me forever, and that I would never risk.”

But if it would have given him something to hope for, live for? Allura wonders, a gash of sadness streaked through her.

_After all, women did it all the time._

“Yes…” he swallows, “I was enamoured with the idea, just as I was with the idea of Altea as a boy. I thought that I could be a better father than mine once was.” He shakes his head, “I was dreaming, with little concept of the reality. I have, sadly, some idealist tendencies.” He sighs.

“I know.” She smiles, “I have loved them for some time.”

“It matters not. If you were to give me one hundred such children, I could never be happy if you were miserable, Allura.”

Her fingers curl in a lock of his hair that has fallen over his shoulder in sheer contemplation. He does not help her, with his gentle words and his concern for _her_.

“I think,” she sighs, staring outward again, “that I have, quite unwittingly, just become the villain in someone else’s story.” 

He peeks at the bright colours from over her shoulder. Now that, was a feeling that he was wholly familiar with. 

“I think, that if New Altea is put to a poll over which of us is worst, they might be hard-pressed to choose you.”

His vague attempt at humour makes her abdominal muscles ache. Lost in a sea of hues of oranges and reds, Allura blinks suddenly. 

“Wait,” she utters, “I had this all wrong.”

“Hm?”

“Look, Lotor,” She says, “It’s not a sunset. It’s a sunrise. It’s getting lighter, and the bird are getting louder.”

Closing his eyes and listening, he can hear that she is right. This world is waking up, not preparing to sleep, and it is welcoming them home.

“So it is.”

And with it, it brings along expectation that jabs Allura in the ribs.

“I’m not ready to face people yet.” She says worriedly, tightening her grip on his arms, “Could we just, stay, and watch for a bit?”

Lotor kisses her temple, and draws her closer.

“I'd like that too.”

* * *


End file.
